The 19th Amendment
The right of 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.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
August 2005 marked the 85th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment to the Constitution. The amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.
I sincerely hope that women in the US will exercise their voting rights in the upcoming election. Our foremothers and sisters fought long and hard to ensure our privilege. With the right comes responsibility to educate ourselves about candidates and issues and to vote. Though I believe our electoral system in the US is badly broken, NOT voting is NOT the way to fix it - especially since we so badly need a change of direction in this country.
1912 Women's Suffrage Parade, New York City###
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