US Unveils Mural Honoring 'Rebel Women' who Campaigned for Voting Rights

Artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, in white, stands in front of a maintenance worker on a lift following the unveiling of her mural in the Statehouse honoring women who campaign for decades for voting rights, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
Artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, in white, stands in front of a maintenance worker on a lift following the unveiling of her mural in the Statehouse honoring women who campaign for decades for voting rights, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
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US Unveils Mural Honoring 'Rebel Women' who Campaigned for Voting Rights

Artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, in white, stands in front of a maintenance worker on a lift following the unveiling of her mural in the Statehouse honoring women who campaign for decades for voting rights, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
Artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, in white, stands in front of a maintenance worker on a lift following the unveiling of her mural in the Statehouse honoring women who campaign for decades for voting rights, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas has a new mural in its Statehouse honoring women who campaigned for voting rights for decades before the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution granted those rights across the nation.
Gov. Laura Kelly and other state officials unveiled the “Rebel Women” painting that spans an entire wall on the first floor on Wednesday, the anniversary of Kansas' admission as the 34th US state in 1861.
While Kansas Day is traditionally marked with renditions of the official state song, “Home on the Range,” Wednesday's event also featured the women's voting rights anthem, "Suffrage Song,” to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
A 2022 law authorized the mural, and artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, of Manhattan, in northeastern Kansas, won the contest with a depiction of 13 prominent Kansas suffragists. A few women in the crowd of several hundred people were dressed as 19th century campaigners who were active before statehood.
Kansas prides itself as entering the union as an anti-slavery free state, but it also was more progressive than other states in gradually granting women full voting rights. Women could vote in school elections in 1861 and in city elections in 1887, and the nation's first woman mayor, Susanna M. Salter, was elected in Argonia, Kansas, that year. Voters amended the state constitution in 1912 to grant women full voting rights.



North Korea Has Opened Its Doors to a Group of International Travelers for the 1st Time in Years 

A group of Russian tourists, likely the first foreign travelers from any country to enter North Korea since the pandemic arrive at the Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Feb. 9, 2024. (AP)
A group of Russian tourists, likely the first foreign travelers from any country to enter North Korea since the pandemic arrive at the Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Feb. 9, 2024. (AP)
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North Korea Has Opened Its Doors to a Group of International Travelers for the 1st Time in Years 

A group of Russian tourists, likely the first foreign travelers from any country to enter North Korea since the pandemic arrive at the Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Feb. 9, 2024. (AP)
A group of Russian tourists, likely the first foreign travelers from any country to enter North Korea since the pandemic arrive at the Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Feb. 9, 2024. (AP)

A small group of foreign tourists has visited North Korea in the past week, making them the first international travelers to enter the country in five years except for a group of Russian tourists who went to the North last year.

The latest trip indicates North Korea may be gearing up for a full resumption of its international tourism to bring in much-needed foreign currency to revive its struggling economy, experts say.

The Beijing-based travel company Koryo Tours said it arranged a five-day trip from Feb. 20 to Feb. 24 for 13 international tourists to the northeastern North Korean border city of Rason, where the country’s special economic zone is located.

Koryo Tours General Manager Simon Cockerell said the travelers from the UK, Canada, Greece, New Zealand, France, Germany, Austria, Australia and Italy crossed by land from China. He said that in Rason, they visited factories, shops, schools and the statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the late grandfather and father of current leader Kim Jong Un.

"Since January of 2020, the country has been closed to all international tourists, and we are glad to have finally found an opening in the Rason area, in the far north of North Korea," Cockerell said.

"Our first tour has been and gone, and now more tourists on both group and private visits are going in, arranging trips," he added.

After the pandemic began, North Korea quickly banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and severely curtailed border traffic in one of the world’s most draconian COVID-19 restrictions. But since 2022, North Korea has been slowly easing curbs and reopening its borders.

In February 2024, North Korea accepted about 100 Russian tourists, the first foreign nationals to visit the country for sightseeing. That surprised many observers, who thought the first post-pandemic tourists would come from China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner and major ally.

A total of about 880 Russian tourists visited North Korea throughout 2024, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said, citing official Russian data. Chinese group tours to North Korea remain stalled.

This signals how much North Korea and Russia have moved closer to each other as the North has supplied weapons and troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine. Ties between North Korea and China cooled as China showed its reluctance to join a three-way, anti-US alliance with North Korea and Russia, experts say.

Before the pandemic, tourism was an easy, legitimate source for foreign currency for North Korea, one of the world’s most sanctioned countries because of its nuclear program.

North Korea is expected to open a massive tourism site on the east coast in June. In January when President Donald Trump boasted about his ties with Kim Jong Un, he said that "I think he has tremendous condo capabilities. He’s got a lot of shoreline." That likely refers to the eastern coast site.

A return of Chinese tourists would be key to making North Korea's tourism industry lucrative because they represented more than 90% of total international tourists before the pandemic, said Lee Sangkeun, an expert at the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank run by South Korea's intelligence agency. He said that in the past, up to 300,000 Chinese tourists visited North Korea annually.

"North Korea has been heavily investing on tourism sites, but there has been not much domestic demand," Lee said. "We can assess that North Korea now wants to resume international tourism to bring in many tourists from abroad."

The restrictions that North Korea has typically imposed on foreign travelers — such as requirements that they move with local guides and the banning of photography at sensitive places — will likely hurt its efforts to develop tourism. Lee said that Rason, the eastern coast site and Pyongyang would be the places where North Korea feels it can easily monitor and control foreign tourists.