Today, we’re celebrating the 90th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage — on this date in 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was certified, giving women the right to vote. The fight for suffrage was first organized in 1848, when women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott started campaigning at the state and federal levels following the Seneca Falls Convention.
Suffrage bills were brought before Congress beginning in 1915, but never passed the House and Senate until June 4, 1919. The amendment then needed 36 states to ratify it. Tennessee became the 36th in the summer of 1920, and women around the country were able to vote in that November’s presidential election for the first time. Despite the accomplishments of the suffrage movement, it would be another 45 years before the 24th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 secured the full enfranchisement of all Americans regardless of sex, race or economic status.
Here are a few of the events going on in our area that commemorate Women’s Equality Day:
The Sewell-Belmont House & Museum has launched an online archive honoring inspirational women.
Ain’t I a Woman: A Complicated Story of Women’s Suffrage in Black and White
Tonight at 7:00 p.m.
William G. McGowan Theater, National Archives
Click here for more details.
The League of Women Voters of the District of Columbia will hold an all day rally in front of the White House to draw attention to the lack of full voting representation and autonomy for D.C. residents. Women and men are invited to join participants anytime at Lafayette Park. Demonstrators are encouraged to wear white. D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton will address the group this morning.
Photo credit: New York Times via Creative Commons
