Facebook live video from Susan B. Anthony grave site brings chills on historic election day

I voted two weeks ago by mail from my home in Seattle, but thanks to a Facebook live video today, on Election Day, I was transported across the country to the city I grew up in to witness an emotional gathering at a historic location.

Thousands of voters in Rochester, N.Y., were standing in line Tuesday morning to place their “I Voted Today” stickers and pose for pictures at the grave marker of Susan B. Anthony in the city’s Mt. Hope Cemetery. The co-founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association, who fought for women’s rights, died in 1906, 14 years before the 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave women the right to vote.

144 years ago yesterday, the suffragist Susan B. Anthony and a group of women calmly walked into a Rochester, NY, polling station and illegally cast their votes in the 1872 election. Anthony was arrested — and fined, but refused to pay a cent. Nearly 100 years later, long after women won the right to vote, state laws and vigilante practices still disenfranchised many black voters — and in fact, many of those early white suffragists (including Anthony) had opposed the black male vote. So when the Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer attempted to register to vote, in 1962, she was fired from her job, received threats, and was nearly a victim of gunshots fired into a friend's home. Today we vote for the first female president, who will succeed the first black president. At Anthony's grave today, women are gathering to place their "I voted" stickers atop. It hasn't been an easy road, nor a perfect one, but the times are-a-changing. #getonboard ??✊?? || Photo: @bikebizzle

A post shared by Feminist Fight Club (@feministfightclub) on Nov 8, 2016 at 7:59am PST

WROC News 8, the CBS affiliate in the city, was live streaming for hours from the grave site, with no plans to stop as voting continued throughout the day. Video captured long lines and many folks posing with children in front of the modest tombstone. Moms visiting with their daughters spoke about the historic significance of voting to potentially make Hillary Clinton the first female president of the United States.

Thousands tuned in to the Facebook video and the reporter behind the camera gave a running commentary as he chatted with voters — while battling some connectivity issues and worrying about battery life. Shortly before 1 p.m. ET, CSPAN took the feed live as the video showed flowers in front of the grave, numerous stickers on the stone and a line stretching back into the cemetery.

“I’m voting for the first woman president. As a woman I can vote because of the sacrifices she made,” Jillian Paris, of the Rochester suburb of Brighton, said in a story in the Democrat & Chronicle. She affixed her sticker to Anthony’s marker at about 7 a.m., shortly after sunrise, the newspaper said.

“I am shocked at the number of people who are here today. I never expected this,” Janice Schwind of Rochester told the D&C after making it through the line. “I thought I could come in, threw my sticker on there and run off to work. I’m an hour late so far.

“It’s making me all choked up to see all the people,” she said.