Eighty five years ago today, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, stating in straightforward blunt language:
The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
That one simple sentence was finally adopted one hundred forty four years after Abigail Adams wrote to her husband:
I long to hear that you have declared an independency — and, by the way, in the new code of laws, which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than [were] your ancestors.
We should remember today that it took a century and a half to welcome half of our population as fellow citizens, with full voting rights, and be thankful that we finally did so. We are enriched when we welcome more, not fewer, voices to the public square. We should remember today the sacrifices and struggles that suffragists went through to fully enfrancise women’s right to vote.
The League of Women Voters has been celebrating this anniversary, and renewing their connection to a tradition tradition of advocacy (from the Toledo Blade) :
It was a simple note in the pocket of a Tennessee state representative 85 years ago today that led to a new constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote.
“Don’t forget to be a good boy,” Harry Burn’s mother wrote, “vote for suffrage.”
The 24-year-old Southerner surprised observers when he cast the deciding vote to ratify the 19th Amendment. But the road to ratification wasn’t as simple as that.
There were demonstrations and parades. And there were trials for those women who dared to cast a ballot.
Today, the League of Women Voters of Toledo-Lucas County- well-known for its voter guides and candidate forums – hopes to return more to its roots.
In celebration of the 85th anniversary of women’s suffrage and the 83rd year of the local league’s founding, members decided to take a new, harder look at advocacy.
“I think our membership has over the time concentrated on doing what we can do well. That is the election process and that is helping with voter education,” said Peg Smith, co-president and spokesman for the local league chapter.
“But advocacy goes to the basic roots of our organization. That’s the very basis of our organization and, more and more, we’ve gone back and concentrated on that area.”
Last month, the local chapter filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Toledo against Ohio’s secretary of state and the governor, alleging the state officials have disenfranchised voters.
I think many of us would agree that our Presidential campaigns have suffered since control of the debates were seized by the two major parties. It is a good sign that the League is taking up the fight again and rejoining the struggle in Ohio, scene of so many questionable voting practices in the last Presidential election.
Feminism isn’t dead, no matter how much the right (and the cowardly Democratic leadership) like to pretend we have left those dark days behind us. The struggle continues. Feminism, after all, is just one flank in the fight for full and complete human rights, and today we continue that struggle on the anniversary of one victory in our ongoing struggle to create the America of our fondest hopes, and not just settle for the present one of empty political rhetoric.
willowby has an excellent diary over at dailyKOS with a fuller history of the struggle for suffrage. Check it out.
poster from The Trial of Susan B. Anthony and the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage: Selected Images
