The 16th annual Febb Burn Banquet sold out as over 400 leaders gathered to hear keynote speaker Rachel Sussman, two-time Tony Award-winning producer of the Broadway musical Suffs, a play that celebrates the 72-year campaign waged by suffragists to earn the right to vote for women.
Tennessee was the final necessary state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, and the state’s vote came down to one young man, Harry T. Burn from Niota, Tennessee. Pressure in Nashville was intense because the stakes were so high. Burn had planned to vote no, but a letter from his mother, Febb Burn, asked him to “be a good boy” and support the Amendment. He did and the rest is history.
Robin Wilhoit served as master of ceremonies, guiding guests through an evening filled with music, poetry and performances honoring the women whose determination helped forever change American democracy…