Twenty women and men, including descendants of local suffragists, joined Mayor Bill Peduto Monday to mark the centennial of Pennsylvania’s support for a woman’s right to vote.

The commonwealth became the seventh state to ratify the 19th Amendment on June 24, 1919.

“Thank you for recognizing that the struggle continues,” Mr. Peduto said to the small crowd made up of representatives of local women’s groups and of the city’s Gender Equity Commission. “Although women fought and were successful in getting the right to vote, that doesn’t mean that equity exists in this city, in this state or in this country.”

In a proclamation honoring the work of local suffragists, Mr. Peduto read off several names, including sisters Lucy and Eliza Kennedy, who spread their message by advertising scores from the 1915 World Series, and prominent African American suffragists Daisy Lampkin and Emma Writt.

Alongside him stood Martha Conley, 72, of East Liberty, and Pamela Richards, 52, of Fox Chapel, the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Ms. Writt.

“I actually didn’t know that there was any black participation,” said Ms. Richards, who recently learned of her great-grandmother’s involvement. “I recently found a nice portrait of Emma that was hidden down in a bottom drawer, something my father stashed away.”

Ms. Richards donated the photo to the Sen. John Heinz History Center, which is collecting artifacts, including diaries, letters and photos, ahead of next year’s centennial of the passage of women’s suffrage.

Mr. Peduto presented the proclamation to his office manager Gloria Forouzan, who has been assisting the History Center, the University of Pittsburgh and Chatham University in digging up Pittsburgh’s women’s suffrage past.

“The history of Pittsburgh women, that’s my passion,” Ms. Forouzan said.

She and roughly 30 others on the Suffrage Centennial Committee are planning a celebration for September 2020 to coincide with National Voter Registration Day so that suffrage for all people can be celebrated, she said.

Representatives of the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Library, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Dress for Success Pittsburgh and others, including a Daisy Lampkin biographer, were present for the proclamation signing.

“I can’t believe that people don’t vote because it was so hard, so fought for,” Ms. Richards said. “To just kind of blindly give it up because you can’t gin up an excitement about an individual person just seems like such a dereliction of duty.”

Ashley Murray: 412-758-6603, amurray@post-gazette.com or on Twitter @Ashley__Murray

First Published: June 24, 2019, 5:01 p.m.