Thousands of women sporting the colors of the suffragette movement marched across British cities on Sunday to honor those who led a decades-long campaign for female franchise.

The processions, which saw women march through the cities of London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, marked 100 years since women first won the right to vote in the UK.

Participants were given a piece of fabric to wear in one of the colors of the suffragettes — either green, white or violet — and marched in a choreographed fashioned to appear as a flowing river of color.

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In London, the bands of color began their procession in the heart of the west end, along Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square, before walking to the British parliament in Westminster.

Sunday's marches were organized by the British arts group Artichoke, which specializes in organizing large-scale participatory events.

It asked 100 artists to work with women's groups to design banners inspired by the designs of the suffragette movement.

In London, an organization of female ex-prisoners and the Worshipful Company of Upholders,one of the Livery Companies of the City of London, named for the archaic word for "upholsterer", lofted their banners during the march.

Artichoke director Helen Marriage said she was taken aback by the amount of enthusiasm for the project. "A craft shop in London told us they'd run out of purple and green tassels, and they didn't know why," she said.

100 years of voting, but work left to do

Women first won the right to vote in the UK through the 1918 Representation of the People Act, although the right was only extended to women above the age of 30 with a minimum property qualification.

Women only won the same voting rights as men in 1928 with the Equal Franchise Act, which reduced the voting age to 21, regardless of property ownership.

Women won the right to vote through the militant approaches of the suffragettes and the more civil, law-abiding suffragist movement.

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After years of peaceful campaigning failed to win women the right to vote, the suffragettes resorted to more militant tactics, including chaining themselves to railings, smashing shop windows and blowing up post boxes. As a result, the movement's legacy remains far more controversial than their suffragist sisters'.

In April, a statue of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett was erected in Parliament Square, the first stature on the site to commemorate a woman. However, it is unlikely that such an honor will be extended to any figures from the suffragette movement.

"They were really extraordinary people," Artichoke's Marriage said. "A thousand of them went to prison. They were force fed in prison. In today's terms they would be described as terrorists."

Marriage also said that while the mood on Sunday was celebratory, it also intended to draw attention to work that still needs to be done to achieve full equality — from closing the gender pay gap to ending sexual harassment at the workplace.

dm/jm (AP, AFP)

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