What is a suffragist?
A suffragist is a person who advocated to extend the right to vote to women. The term was most commonly used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to those who participated in the American women’s suffrage movement.
What is the 19th Amendment?
The 19th Amendment, also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, guarantees women’s constitutional right to vote. The 19th Amendment states that “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.” The amendment was introduced by Congress each year from 1878-1920, and was finally certified into the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920. The moment that the 19th Amendment was ratified, over 26 million American women were made eligible to vote.
What is the women’s suffrage movement?
The women’s suffrage movement, or women’s fight for equality, for the vote, and for a full voice in civic life, is the story of a great American movement for change that led our Nation ever closer to a more perfect union. It is a story – written by women, led by women – about democracy at work and the power and courage of the American spirit.
There is no singular heroine that defines the story of the women’s suffrage movement; there were great leaders, but this was a movement driven by the collective power of democracy. And like most movements for change, women’s fight for equality is also a story without a clear beginning or a clear end. There was no one moment when American women decided that their country owed them more. Instead, over centuries, seeds of rebellion were planted, and two central questions were passed between generations from grandmother-to-mother-to-daughter: hadn’t the Revolutionary War been fought to guarantee the right to self-governance for every American? Shouldn’t it be that in this new and great Nation, one truth should be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal?
Those two questions would blaze a trail through history so bright and so unyielding that the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 – which guaranteed women’s constitutional right to vote and set precedents in protest, civic organization, and societal change that continue to inspire today – would come to be remembered as an inevitable conclusion, the climactic high note of a centuries-long crescendo.
But the story of women’s fight for the vote did not end in 1920 with the certification of the 19th Amendment. Discriminatory laws, gendered citizenship practices, and systems designed to oppress continued to prevent many women in the United States from exercising the promises of the 19th Amendment: Native American women were not fully enfranchised until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924; Asian American women were not fully enfranchised until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Acts of 1952; and Black and Hispanic women were not fully enfranchised until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
And so, the task ahead is to build a monument that makes visible the role of our foremothers in building, securing, and expanding our democracy; celebrates the suffragists’ patriotism and resilience; and inspires a continued investment in America’s constitutional promise of freedom, justice, and equality for all. Together, we will build a tribute to the women and men who, in the words of suffragist Mary McLeod Bethune, “fought for America with all her imperfections, not so much for what she is, but for what we know she can be.”