***March is Women’s History Month and Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf used a recent County Commission meeting to tell of one example of women’s influence.

Several events led to the Revolutionary War in 1776, including the Boston Tea Party in 1773, he said. Most have heard of the event when Samuel Adams and the “Sons of Liberty” dumped tea into the Boston Harbor to protest the tea tax levied by the British Crown. Virtually no one has heard of the Edenton Tea Party, he said.

Ten months after the Boston Tea Party, Penelope Barker, 46, twice widowed, mother of two sons and married to attorney John Barker, met in her friend Elizabeth King’s home with 50 other women and organized the first recorded women’s political protest. The women signed a declaration of their own and sent it to a London newspaper, Leaf recounted.

“Maybe it has only been men who have protested the king up to now,” the declaration read.

“That only means we women have taken too long to let our voices be heard. We are signing our names to a document, not hiding ourselves behind costumes like the men in Boston did at their tea party. The British will know who we are. We, the aforesaid Lady’s, will not promote ye wear of any manufacturer from England until such time that all acts which tend to enslave our native country shall be repealed,” Leaf quoted.

The colonists praised the women and joined their boycott, however, the English news media portrayed the women as bad mothers and loose women.

“Sound familiar?” Leaf asked. “To our youth: politics and labeling has been going on for centuries. From loose women to ‘Krauts’ and ‘Japs’ in World War II to gooks in Korea and Vietnam wars to homophobe, to etc…,” he said. “Learn from these principled women and how they handled the labeling. To our youth ‘ladys’: never underestimate “Girl” power. Happy Women’s History Month.”