New Idaho Capitol statue has a lesson: Never give up on the struggle for justice | Opinion

A beautiful new sculpture was unveiled in front of the Idaho Capitol this week. If you’re in the neighborhood, you should stop by to see “The Spirit of Idaho Women” by Irene Deely.

The statue is meant to commemorate an event: the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which protected women’s right to vote. But the power of Deely’s sculpture is that it isn’t a snapshot of the moment of victory or a portrait of one of the key historical figures holding a sign.

It’s the depiction of a process, of a long march toward a better world that is nowhere near complete.

To the women who were fighting for the vote in 1890, when Idaho was first granted statehood, it must have often seemed impossible that they would win. Winning meant getting a majority of votes, and since only men could vote, it meant that a majority of men would have to vote to share power.

There were few obvious signs that they would. That year Wyoming became the first state where women could vote.

But countless women throughout Idaho showed up and fought for their rights anyway, year after year. What seemed possible mattered less than what was clearly right.

And in 1896, two-thirds of Idaho voters approved equal voting rights. A quarter of a century later, all states were required to let women vote. (Idaho wouldn’t have a constitution that truly protected universal voting rights until it revoked formal voting bans for Native Americans, Asians and Mormons, a process that wasn’t complete until the 1980s.)

There’s a lesson in that history.

It’s no secret that Idaho politics have been lurching toward the far right since the Republican primary election was closed. Give only the most ideologically hardcore a say in who takes office in most of the state, and this is what you wind up with.

Idaho still has in its constitution a bigoted clause that declares thousands of same-sex marriages illegitimate. And the state has some of the harshest abortion laws in the country. The prisons are overflowing, in too many cases with people who simply violated parole.

In Idaho, if your landlord tells you you’re kicked out of your apartment because of your religion, you have cause for a lawsuit. If they kick you out because you’re gay, state law offers you no protection.

In the last few years, the Legislature has sought to ban issuing transgender people identifying documents that match their gender (in defiance of the Equal Protection Clause and a court order), and there have been repeated efforts to pass a law that would charge women who obtain an abortion with murder.

This deterioration of common decency and respect for others has demoralized many Idahoans. It’s more and more common to hear people say they’re ready to leave, that they can’t stand the political climate any longer.

Everyone has their own circumstances, and they have to make their own choices. But Deely’s sculpture makes the case that you should stay, and continue participating in the long struggle for justice, even when it seems hopeless.

Because there will be new efforts to strip away rights and impose legal discrimination when the Legislature convenes in January. There will be efforts to ban books, to target gay pride festivals with legal sanctions and to undermine the public school system.

So good people need to show up and be heard.

People like the women who walked in the shoes that trail behind the woman in Deely’s sculpture. People like those to whom she is offering a shoe to continue marching on.

And there are lots of people who are carrying forward the legacy of justice and equality in Idaho. When the Legislature returns in January, consider lacing up your boots and joining them.

The old Martin Luther King quote is that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

It’s true.

But it’s only true because good people pull it in that direction through years of dedicated work.

Our thanks to Deely for the reminder.