Terri Sewell And The Women Over 50 Raising Their Voices For Voting Rights

From the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, to the 2020 presidential election—in which one very powerful woman helped 800,000 people register to vote—women have been at the forefront of the fight to expand voting rights to all American citizens.

Between the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which gave Black Americans the right to elective franchise, these efforts have largely been successful. Yet 173 years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, in the Declaration of Sentiments, that one half of the population felt “aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights,” there are still American citizens who feel these same emotions. Just last month, Georgia passed a bill that restricts voting access by limiting the time available to request absentee ballots and making it a crime to provide food or water to anyone waiting in line to vote, among other things. These limitations will have a disproportionate effect on working-class and Black and brown voters, who may not be able to take off on Election Day and who benefit from broader access to the polls.

Leaders across the public and private sectors have raised their voices against this bill, but in keeping with history, some of the loudest battle cries have come from women—including women over the age of 50. And so, as part of our regular segment on Morning Joe, highlighting women over the age of 50 who are changing the world, Forbes and Know Your Value want to shine a light on the women who are using their voices to push for expanded voting rights in the U.S. They are:

Deborah Turner, 70: A Mason City, Iowa, native who grew up tagging along with her mom to local city meetings and door-to-door campaign volunteering, Deborah Turner didn’t begin her professional life crusading for voting rights. She received her medical degree and chose to focus on gynecologic oncology, building a 30-year career as a specialist in the field. But Turner never forgot the lessons her civically engaged mother had taught her and always had a keen eye for social justice issues.

Eventually, she felt compelled to obtain a law degree (studying nights and weekends while still treating patients during the day) and began volunteering with the League of Women Voters, an organization founded by Carrie Chapman Catt in 1920. She joined the organization’s board in 2016, and in June 2020, a decade after she first became a member, Turner was elected as its president.

“We have forms of voter suppression, and, for one reason or another, we see forms of it happening, particularly in communities that are economically challenged,” Turner told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier last year. “And we make sure they get equal access to the ballot.”

The League is one of many groups that has endorsed H.R. 1, the For The People Act, which would expand voting rights and help limit partisan gerrymandering.

Rep. Terri Sewell, 56: The Democratic representative for Alabama’s 7th congressional district, Sewell has had a career of firsts: She was the first Black valedictorian of Selma High School; she was the first Black female partner at Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C., the Birmingham law firm where she worked as a public finance attorney in the beginning of her career; and in 2010, she became the first Black woman to ever serve in Alabama’s congressional delegation.

So it is fitting, then, that Sewell is also the person who first introduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Act (alongside Sen. Patrick Leahy) in 2019. She hasn’t yet re-introduced it to the current Congress, but is waiting for the right moment.

“You can’t grow up in Selma and not be painfully aware of the sacrifices of foot soldiers and freedom fighters—ordinary Americans who literally stood up and fought against the inequities they saw when it came to voting rights,” Sewell told Vox in 2018. “They did so at their own peril.”

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, 66: De Rothschild is perhaps best known as a founding partner of E.L. Rothschild, a family office whose holdings include The Economist’s parent company, and as a longtime board member of the Estée Lauder Cos. But she’s also the founder of Inclusive Capital Partners, an investment manager for Jeff Ubben’s $1.5 billion Spring Fund, and the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism, which works with public and private partners to find ways to make capitalism work better for everyone.

It is through the second lens—the Inclusive Capital lens—that De Rothschild found herself organizing and hosting a meeting about state voting laws for the CEOs of America’s biggest companies. CBS News reported that among the more than 100 corporate executives in attendance were Mellody Hobson, Ariel Investments’ co-CEO; Doug McMillon, Walmart CEO; Doug Parker, the CEO of American Airlines; and Reid Hoffman, a cofounder of LinkedIn.

“It is our patriotic duty to protect the most vital of rights for all Americans. This is an essential act of inclusive capitalism because without a thriving democracy we cannot have a thriving and secure capitalism,” De Rothschild has said.

Phyllis Newhouse, 58: Newhouse is the founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm Xtreme Solutions, as well as the CEO of Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. (a SPAC). She also understands what it means to fight for American freedom and rights: She served in the military for 22 years. And though she is retired from active duty, she’s still looking for ways to give back, which is why she recently hosted a town hall, along with Fair Fight founder Stacey Abrams, focused on educating female business leaders about voting rights and encouraging them to use their voices against voter suppression efforts, like the new law in Newhouse’s home state of Georgia. 

“When I think of serving this country for 22 years, and I think about me being in a position that some of these veterans are in—where you can serve this country, but you come back and you’ve been told that we’ve restricted your right to vote—that’s not right,” she said. “I will denounce these bills, period.”

Newhouse also challenged the 100 entrepreneurs in attendance to do the same, and to call their local state representatives: “All of us are on social media. We have the impact, [and] we've got the power and the numbers, if we use our voices collectively.”