Betty Gram Swing worked full time for the National Woman’s Party (NWP) from 1917-1920. A national organizer, she traveled across the United States to build grassroots support for the suffrage amendment. Swing first picketed the White House on November 10, 1917, and experienced the brutal “Night of Terror” at the Occoquan Workhouse, where guards terrorized jailed suffragists. She joined an eight-day hunger strike during her imprisonment. Swing was among the suffragists arrested while picketing President Wilson’s parade on February 24, 1919. Newspaper accounts noted she was the only one to resist arrest. After the passage of the 19th Amendment, Swing married broadcast journalist Raymond Swing in 1921, convincing him to use both their names, becoming Betty Gram Swing and Raymond Gram Swing. She continued to advocate for women’s rights, working closely with Alice Paul on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
