After Black Friday, the Daily Mirror published a photograph of suffragist Ada Wright, knocked to the ground by police and shielding her face from blows. The government attempted to suppress its publication, then tried to buy the entire print run, and ordered the destruction of the negative.
Seven years later in the United States, American Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party initiated the very first instance of a now-hallowed political act: a picket of the White House. Starting in January 1917, 200 suffragists picketed—and also lit bonfires at the gates. Perhaps five hundred were arrested on charges of obstructing sidewalk traffic, while 168, including Paul, were imprisoned for terms of up to seven months. Then, on November 15, 1917, the “Night of Terror,” the superintendent of the Occoquan Workhouse ordered forty guards with clubs to beat the 33 suffragists in custody.