Represent! Voices 100 years on

The People’s History Museum has opened its exhibition Represent! Voices 100 Years On by recreating a defining moment in the history of suffrage.

Today’s campaigners for equality filled the places of those who in 1910 were seeking to have their voices heard, ahead of a march which would become known as Black Friday due to the atrocities that were inflicted upon those seeking to gain the right to vote.

A century on from when the Representation of the People Act in 1918 gave all men and some women the right to vote in Britain, Represent! Voices 100 Years On asks what progress has been made since this time. 

#BlackFriday 1910 opening

This question also led the discussion for those participating in the #BlackFriday1910 opening, including Helen Pankhurst, great granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, Sally Lindsay, whose programme Emmeline Pankhurst: The Making Of A Militant airs on BBC NW on 8 June 2018, Erinma Bell MBE, who has campaigned against gun crime and Sisters Uncut, who have campaigned against cuts to domestic violence services.

Helen Antrobus, Programme Officer at the People’s History Museum, said, “Our opening reflects the powerful stories that are explored in the exhibition, which acknowledges those who have campaigned for equality by looking to those who are continuing this quest today. These stories, and the exhibition, make people feel uncomfortable at how little has changed, but also empowered and inspired to be the change that is needed. The exhibition highlights that the words and campaigns of the past are still very much alive in the present.”

Represent! is at the People's History Museum until 3 February 2019.

People's History Museum, New Court Street, Spinningfields, Manchester M3 3ER; tel: 0161 838 9190; website.

(archive image copyright Museum of London, modern-day image copyright People's History Museum)