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Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, District 5 Commissioner Regina I. Hill, former Orange County Mayor Linda Chapin and historian and author Joy Wallace Dickinson joined the League of Women Voters to celebrate Women’s History Month with the dedication of one of two historical markers as part of the National Votes for Women Trail, a program created by the National Collaborative of Women’s History Sites, to honor the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment granting women’s right to vote.

The two markers, which will be located at the Historic Angebilt Hotel and the First Unitarian Church of Orlando, commemorate the work of Reverend Mary Safford, who led the Florida Equal Suffrage Association and played a key role in advancing women’s rights to vote in Orlando and the United States. Through Safford’s work, women in Orlando were granted the right to vote a year before the 19th amendment was ratified nationwide in 1920, putting Orlando on the map as one of the country’s early leaders in equity and inclusion for all people.

Orlando was selected as the location for two of the 14 Florida historical sites identified by the state selection committee for the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites. The markers will be two of the 250 physical suffrage markers across the nation and an online database of more than 2,400 sites related to women’s suffrage. These markers were made possible through generous funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, which has funded more than 200 markers like this across the country