Wanda Sobieski in her Gay Street office with a model of the Burn Memorial they want to build and place in downtown Knoxville location Monday, Nov. 23, 2015. Fundraising efforts are underway by the Suffrage Coalition for the Burn Memorial honoring Rep. Harry Burn and his mother, Febb Ensinger Burn.A 24-year-old lawmaker whose vote in August 1920 ratified women's suffrage for Tennessee, creating the national amendment, is an important part of East Tennessee history.
The vote of that young person, Harry Burn, and one letter turned the tide and allowed women to vote, said Wanda Sobieski, a Knoxville lawyer.
Sobieski and others from the Suffrage Coalition, a nonprofit special project of the East Tennessee Foundation, want to honor Harry and Febb Burn with a memorial statue in downtown Knoxville. The location is being finalized and an approximately $400,000 fundraising campaign will start soon, Sobieski said. She hopes the statue will be unveiled on or before Mother's Day 2020, which is the centennial of the vote.