Celebrating trailblazers: League of Women Voters honors Yellow Rose awardees
On March 19, the League of Women Voters hosted their annual “Women Who Shape Santa Monica” ceremony, in which four outstanding women were recognized for their diligence and dedication to their communities.
Shari Davis, Ana Gioconda Jara, Carla Fantozzi and Joanne Whitcomb Berlin were hand-selected by the League of Women Voters’s board, and celebrated for their outstanding accomplishments throughout the year.
Each woman was approved with a majority vote from the board and awarded with a Yellow Rose for their work. The Yellow Rose was used as a signifier in the late 19th century for those who supported the suffrage movement. Those who opposed women’s suffrage donned red roses.
Since its founding in 1920, the League of Women Voters organization has been on the frontlines for women’s rights. For over 100 years, the League has remained steadfast as a nonpartisan activist organization holding the beliefs that voters have a crucial role in shaping democracy.
Suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt is widely recognized as the founder of the League. In her address to the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s (NAWSA) convention in 1919, she advocated for forming a league of women voters to aid in the fight for equal rights. Catt’s proposition led to the official creation of the League of Women Voters in Chicago on Feb. 14, 1920.
Following the ratification of the 19th Amendment on Aug. 18, 1920, which granted women the legal right to vote, the League of Women Voters hit the ground running. Their mission was to encourage women to utilize their newfound right in upcoming elections that could radically change public policies.
Catt explained the purpose of the organization in the address: “The League of Women Voters is not to dissolve any present organization but to unite all existing organizations of women who believe in its principles. It is not to lure women from partisanship but to combine them in an effort for legislation which will protect coming movements, which we cannot even foretell, from suffering the untoward conditions which have hindered for so long the coming of equal suffrage. Are the women of the United States big enough to see their opportunity?”
Shari Davis, one of the awardees of the night, is the co-director of the Santa Monica College (SMC) Public Policy Institute, as well as an SMC professor of political science. Davis has been teaching an “Introduction to Public Policy” course since the spring of 2013.
Davis’s Teaching Philosophy/Equity Statement on the SMC directory reads, “I strive to inspire students to become agents of change and to engage in the civic life of the communities in which they live, work and study.”
Davis has been a dedicated advocate for education and public policy, as in 2023, when she aided in the opening of SMC’s Malibu campus. Her work in Malibu does not stop there, and she has raised around $40 million annually for public education.
She has served on numerous community boards, namely The Children’s Partnership, a nonprofit children’s advocacy organization. “Education is the great equalizer,” she said during her Yellow Rose acceptance speech.
The overarching theme of the night was unity. The organization prides itself on being a welcoming space for parties on both sides, and for all genders and ideologies. Their mission thus far and going forward is to unite communities in the hopes of creating fairer public policies and nurturing each person’s right to vote.
“This is an organization for everyone,” Davis said. “It informs them, gives them a chance to be active in their community.”