Aug 26, 08: 19th Amendment Women's Right To Vote

In the 232 years of the United States' history, women have only had the right to vote for the past 88.

The 19th Amendment, securing the right to vote for women, became law on this date, August 26th, in 1920.

The right to vote was won by the sacrifice of women who were harassed, wrongfully arrested, imprisoned, force-fed, tortured, and remained committed to their cause. Many suffered. Some died.

Inez Milholland. Alice Paul. Lucy Burns. Carrie Chapman Catt. Anna Howard Shaw. Names every American should know, just like Ben Franklin, George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson. Each one committed to participatory democracy, to liberty, to freedom from exploitation. The names of the men, taught to us in school, loom as giants of American history.

The names of the women, not so much.

The right to vote was not handed to us. It was the result of decades of grass-roots activism. It was the result of women insisting, over and over and over again, that they counted exactly just as much as men.

Our presence in the election booth is the result of the same dogged determination which drives all movements that reject discrimination, oppression, and intolerance. Women's rights are civil rights. Women's rights are human rights.

We continue to create a stronger nation by empowering women, ensuring equal pay for their work, equal respect for their care, and equal opportunity for their talents. The world we leave our children will never be all it could be unless women participate fully in its government and share equally in the distribution of its wealth. This will not be handed to us. It will be the result of decades of grass-roots activism. We will insist upon it, over and over and over again.

When we vote in November, that is worth remembering. We live a precious legacy, and we honor it by raising our own voices, in our homes, with our friends, in the street, and at the polls.

Plan now to vote on November 4th.