A celebration of almost 90 years of the 19th Amendment will take place on the campus of Saint Louis University on Saturday, Sept. 6. Arranged by the St. Louis chapter of the League of Women Voters and Kids Voting Missouri, this “Yellow Umbrella Event” will feature a march and a rally to encourage voter registration and education.

“As voters we need to remember how lucky we are to have these rights,” said Lorrie Riley, who interned for the League this summer and helped organize the event.

The event will start at 10:30 a.m. with a parade around campus to commemorate the Walkless, Talkless Parade of 1916, which organizers say is remembered as a turning point in the women’s suffrage movement.

At 11:30 a.m. there will be a rally at Boileau Hall featuring speeches by local political figures, along with a keynote address by Mary Wilson, national president of the League of Women Voters.

Several university students from the St. Louis area played a role in organizing and publicizing the event. Riley, a senior at Truman State University, contacted several groups whose missions coincided with the League’s. She said that she received some of the most enthusiastic responses from student groups. One such group was Una, SLU’s feminist chartered student organization. Una Moderator Katie Cushwa said that the group was eager to participate in the Yellow Umbrella Event as a way to exercise political power.

“Everyone should be educating themselves about the issues that affect them and those that they care about,” Cushwa said. “Many people vote casually; it’s time to vote seriously.”

During the original Walkless, Talkless March in 1916, women-still denied the right to vote in federal elections throughout United States-gathered to protest the Democratic National Convention, which was held in St. Louis that year.

They dressed in white and yellow and taped their mouths shut as a sign of their disenfranchisement. Along with others, including one in Washington, D.C., this demonstration is believed to have helped win the fight for voting rights.

Patti Walley, a local executive for the League of Women Voters and the force behind Saturday’s event, said that she has tried to take a bipartisan approach to the issues.

“The right for women to vote was not a party issue, and neither should be a movement to encourage Americans to exercise those rights,” Walley said.