The Turning Point Suffragist Memorial is a monument to American suffragists. It opened in May 2021.
Occoquan Regional Park is on a part of the historic prison grounds where the Occoquan Workhouse was located. One hundred and sixty-eight documented Silent Sentinel suffragists aged 19 to 73 were unjustly imprisoned there and were humiliated, kept in inhumane conditions, locked in solitary confinement, and severely beaten. When word leaked out, it was the Turning Point in the battle for suffrage.
The Silent Sentinels were a group of over 2,000 women in favor of women’s suffrage organized by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, who nonviolently protested in front of the White House during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency starting on January 10, 1917. Nearly 500 were arrested, and 168 served jail time. They were the first group to picket the White House.
The Plaza features the names of the women who were imprisoned in Occoquan and the District of Columbia for picketing the White House in 1917. There is also a statue of Mary Church Terrell, a prominent Black suffragist leader and co-founder of the NAACP and a replica ballot box. A colorful banner hangs from a light pole at the entrance to the memorial plaza.
A ring of 19 interpretive stations covers the history of the suffragist movement up until the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920. Within the circle is gazebo engraved with these six words: Justice, Democracy, Liberty, Equality, Freedom, and Advocacy. A statue of National American Woman Suffragist Association president, Carrie Chapman Catt, stands in the center with a bouquet of flowers.
