More than 150 years after Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting, her gravesite in Mount Hope Cemetery remained a pilgrimage site on an unusually warm Election Day morning in Rochester, N.Y.
The tradition of placing “I Voted” stickers on the activist’s gravestone began in 2016 and now attracts visitors from across the country. The cemetery uses plastic covers to protect the stones for Anthony and her sister Mary, then preserves the covers for display as historic artifacts in their own right.
Kathy Brown and her daughter Megan traveled from Lakewood, Col., just to pay homage, a decision Megan made for her mother after Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee. They dressed in the suffragist movement’s trademark white, wearing “Votes for Women” sashes.
“I told her, this is where we need to be. I need to be here when we elect our first woman president,” Megan Brown said.
Kathy Brown brought her mother’s handkerchief and an “I Voted” sticker from her mother-in-law.
“I’m a little more emotional than I thought I would be,” Megan Brown said. “It’s humbling knowing that [Anthony and her colleagues] worked so hard for an outcome that they themselves did not get to fully realize.”
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