Community Corner

Overlea Commemorative March For Suffragettes Saturday

Belair Road will be closed below Taylor Avenue and above Northern Parkway from about 8:15 a.m. Feb. 23 until marchers are off the road.

A march to commemorate the efforts of women to earn the right to vote nearly 100 years ago will take place in the Overlea neighborhood this weekend.

In the winter of 1913, a group of suffragettes marched from New York City to Washington D.C. in the dead of winter to draw attention to the women's suffrage movement and on their path they stopped in Overlea, according to an article in the New York Times.

On Saturday, a group will march three blocks on Belair Road to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the march. The event begins at Overlea-Fullerton Community Center, 7209 Belair Road, around 8 a.m.

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Belair Road will be closed to traffic between Taylor Avenue and Northern Parkway from about 8:15 a.m. until all the participants are out of the street. The march ends at the Maryland Natural History Society, on Belair Road.

Participants are encouraged to wear yellow ribbons, and Overlea residents are encouraged to line the march route, according to march organzier Doris Poling.

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Poling, an Overlea Community Association board member, said it was important to celebrate such a milestone.

"When I heard about it I was just blown away that it was part of our history in Overlea," Poling said. "I think it’s just absolutely exciting and a wonderful thing. It’s amazing to me that my mother, when she was born, women did not have the right to vote. I think it’s so important—we take it for granted in some ways. The fact that these women ... it was a big march in Washington that they were walking to, of course, to bring notoriety to the suffrage movement."

Will you participate in the march Saturday morning? Tell us in the comments.


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