About Tribute Committee

Michelle is a member of the Chicago Womxn's Suffrage Tribute Committee which formed in 2020 to create significant public art pieces that would help local suffragists and historic leaders become more known and recognized. Their first project was commissioning the creation of several murals in prominent locations in downtown Chicago. They plan to work on other pieces, including walking tours and historical markers at women's suffrage sites, that will have state and national impact to uplift female political trailblazers and educate people about how the past is connected to the present.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Meg Duguid is an artist and an arts administrator. She is currently the Executive Director of Exhibitions for Columbia College Chicago’s Department of Exhibitions and Performing and Student Spaces and Chief Curator of the Wabash Arts Corridor. Most recently she curated Where the Future Came From, an exhibition and resulting book exploring the history of feminist artist-run spaces in Chicago from 1880-2018. Duguid is co-developing TheVisualist.org into a comprehensive and searchable cultural archive of artist-run projects and actions in Chicago. 

Michelle Duster is a writer, speaker, educator, public historian, and champion of racial and gender equity. She has written, edited, or contributed to over 20 books. Her advocacy has led to street names, monuments, historical markers, and other public history projects that highlight women and African Americans, including her paternal great-grandmother Ida B. Wells. 

Catherine Mardikes serves as Vice President of the League of Women Voters of Chicago and co-leader of the South Side Unit. She was a lead organizer in the successful effort to name a street in downtown Chicago after Ida. B. Wells. Catherine is Senior Humanities Bibliographer at the University of Chicago Library. She holds a PhD in Classics from the same university.     

Kris Nesbitt is Senior Director of Planning at Black Ensemble Theater. She is a board member for the Cultural Access Collaborative and a proud Girl Scout troop leader and volunteer. A long-time leader in museums, she was recipient of the John Cotton Dana Award for Leadership from the American Alliance of Museums in 2019. 

Lori Osborne directs the Evanston Women’s History Project at the Evanston History Center.  In 2020 she served as the Illinois Coordinator for the Votes for Women Trail, which was a project in honor of the 100th Anniversary of the 19th (Women’s Suffrage) Amendment. 

Neysa Page-Lieberman is a curator, writer, educator and organizer, and the Founder & Artistic Director of Monumenta, a community-engaged initiative creating commemorative public artworks about collective action. Current projects include Trespassers Beware: Wyandot Women Warriors with the Wyandot Nation of Kansas and the Feminist Seed Bank, with an international coalition of artists working in plant-based craft. Formerly she was the Chief Curator of the Wabash Arts Corridor in Chicago.