Rachel Holmes discusses how today’s campaigners can emulate the success of the Suffragettes in extending democracy.

Sylvia Pankhurst was a natural rebel, a talented artist, prolific writer and newspaper editor. A free spirit and radical visionary, history placed her in the shadow of her famous mother, Emmeline, and elder sister, Christabel. Sylvia Pankhurst was the most revolutionary of them all.

Sylvia found her voice fighting militantly for votes for women. Her commitment to equality caused her to serve multiple sentences in Holloway prison – where she was tortured. The vote was just the beginning of her lifelong defence of human rights, from her early warnings of the rise of fascism in Europe, to her campaigning against racism and championing of the liberation struggles in Africa and India. She was a true internationalist; one of the great minds of the modern era, engaging with political giants, including Churchill, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, George Bernard Shaw, W.E.B. Du Bois and Haile Selassie.

Rachel Holmes discusses protest, rebellion and change with writer Sian Norris.

Rachel Holmes’ Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel is published by Bloomsbury. Buy a copy from Waterstones, our bookselling partners.

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Festival of Ideas: Rachel Holmes and Sian Norris, What Can We Learn from Sylvia Pankhurst and the Suffragettes?