"You Have to Start a Thing"

Introduced by museum educator Sally Bloom and curator of political and social history Raelana Poteat, “You Have to Start a Thing” shares actors’ portrayals of differing opinions on woman suffrage based on actual speeches, letters, newspaper articles, and propaganda circulating in North Carolina between the 1890s and 1920. 

“I want to blaze a trail for other women. I know that years from now there will be many other women in politics, but you have to start a thing.” —Lillian Exum Clement, 1921