08/26/2020
National Woman's Party
Today marks 100 years since the 19th Amendment became law, finally securing in the U.S. Constitution a woman’s right to vote after more than 70 years of struggle by generations of women across the country.
National Woman’s Party (NWP) founders Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, along with countless brave and committed people from across the country, helped accomplish this achievement. And they did so by pursuing innovative tactics and strategies—marching, organizing, lobbying, holding politicians accountable, and picketing the White House—the first organization in history to do so.
They persisted, even during World War I, when many believed it unpatriotic to criticize President Woodrow Wilson during war time. It was this commitment to purpose that led to their arrest, imprisonment, and even an effort to declare Alice Paul insane. In protest of their treatment, many went on hunger strikes and endured brutal force feedings that left them with long-term health issues.
The suffrage movement, like the country, was impelled by and tolerated racism, despite the leadership and participation of many Black women, including Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell and members of the Delta Sigma Alpha sorority. And after ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, voting rights were not evenly given. It would be decades before Black and Native American women achieved those rights. Still today, voter suppression and assaults against women’s basic rights remain a threat that disproportionately impact women of color.
The story is told at Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument in Washington, DC.
Alice Paul said that the 19th Amendment vote was a means to an end and the real goal was equality. In 1923, Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment, and for the next 50 years, the NWP worked to overturn legal discrimination at the local, state, national and international levels.
Today, activists across the country and the globe are raising their voices, working to take the next leap forward for justice and equality for all.
Our foremothers from 100 years ago would no doubt be proud.
Onward!
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