August 26th is the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote, and has been celebrated as Women’s Equality Day since 1971.
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Women’s Equality Day - National Women’s History Museum
The Woman Suffrage Amendment was first introduced on January 10, 1878. It was resubmitted numerous times until it was finally approved by both the House and Senate in June 1919. The bill needed to be approved by two-thirds of the states, so suffragists spent the next year lobbying state legislatures to gain support for the bill. On August 24, 1920, Tennessee became 36th and final state to ratify the amendment, which passed by only one vote. That one vote belonged to Harry Burn, who heeded the words of his mother when she urged him to vote for suffrage. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed the amendment into law on August 26, 1920.
Voting Advocates Say Women’s Equality Day Has A Complicated (And Yes, Racist) History - NPR
Women's Equality Day is all about celebrating equal rights, but it's important to note that when women first won the right to vote more than a century ago, equal rights weren't so equal…Here's what you might not know: the blanket use of the word "women" when discussing what the 19th Amendment changed is misleading. Millions of women — those who weren't white — were effectively left out when it came to gaining the right to vote in 1920, despite Black women's involvement in the suffragette movement. Some white suffragettes also viewed it as a great injustice that they did not have the right to vote, even though Black men legally did. What appeared to be a fight for equality on the surface had more than a few racist caveats tacked on, creating a stark contradiction in what suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony were arguing was morally right.
Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women That a Movement Forgot - Mikki Kendall
Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on reproductive rights, politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux. An unforgettable debut, Kendall has written a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed.
What Is Women’s Equality Day and Why Is It Celebrated? - Newsweek
Women's Equality Day is observed annually in the U.S. on August 26. It has been celebrated since 1971 and the date was selected to commemorate the anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote in 1920. On August 26, 1970, the 50th anniversary of the amendment's passage and a year before the first Women's Equality Day, the Women's Strike for Equality March saw 50,000 women walk down New York City's Fifth Avenue, linking arms and blocking traffic.
WATCH
The Vote - PBS.com
One hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, The Vote tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote — a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.
Equal Rights Amendment - Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
There’s still nothing in our constitution that explicitly prohibits sex discrimination. John Oliver talks about how to fix that.
LISTEN
The Untold History of Women’s Equality Day - Podcast, The Stuff Mom Never Told You
Women's Equality is one of those bittersweet holidays. It marks the incredible effort that led to US women gaining the right to vote, while reminding us of another critical constitutional amendment that would have established true equality - but failed.
Ordinary Equality - The End of Roe vs. Wade - Podcast, The Brown Girls Guide to Politics
Given the Supreme Court leak, we're bringing you a bonus episode from the show Ordinary Equality. Executive Producer Jenny Kaplan sat down with OE Hosts Kate Kelly and Jamia Wilson to talk about what comes next in a post-Roe v. Wade world.
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