Photo of President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act with
Rev. Martin L. King and other Civil Rights Leaders. (National Archives)

Celebrating Women's Equality Day August 26th is officially Women's Equality Day. After years of protests, marches, letter writing and lobbying, the 19th Amendment was approved by the House and the Senate in June 1919. It needed and received a two-thirds vote when Senator Harry Burn’s vote for Tennessee became the 36th and final state to cast the ratifying vote. After rejecting the amendment earlier, South Carolina was the 46th state to sign the bill on July 1, 1969. Although women in other states already had the right to vote, on August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Colby signed the 19th amendment into law. Women across the nation celebrated and continue to celebrate today.

Unfortunately, for many women of color, Jim Crow legislation in the South and other women’s rights movements that often discriminated against them, prevented the celebration for all women. Black women in America continued to fight for forty-five years, to win their right to vote through the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Today, in 2021, the struggle to keep those rights and provide one vote for each citizen remains a challenge. The Voting Rights Act is under siege, and we must all continue to fight. Hundreds of bills across the nation are putting impediments in the path of the American voter and specifically in the path of its most disenfranchised and senior citizens. The Brennan Center references the introduction of 389 bills with restrictive provisions in 48 states, in May 2021.

On August 26, 1971, Congress certified the date as Women’s Equality Day. Today, women’s groups are fighting to have the day declared a federal holiday.