Three woman suffragists cast votes in New York City around 1917. Woman suffragists fought for the right of women to vote. The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed on Aug. 18, 1920, granted this right to women throughout the country.
Credit: © Everett Collection/Shutterstock

Aug. 18, 2020, is the 100th anniversary of the addition of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The amendment granted women the right to vote. It reads, “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.”

During colonial times, the right to vote was generally limited to adult males who owned property. After the United States became an independent nation, the Constitution gave the states the right to decide who could vote. One by one, the states abolished property requirements. By 1830, nearly all the states had given all white male adults the vote.

In the mid-1800’s, such leaders as Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone began speaking out for equal rights for women. Suffrage (the right to vote) soon became their chief goal. People who supported the drive for suffrage were called suffragists. The woman suffrage movement gained strength after 1870, when the 15th Amendment extended voting rights to Black men.

The House of Representatives approved the 19th Amendment in 1918, but the Senate defeated it. The House passed the amendment again on May 21, 1919. The Senate finally passed it on June 4. However, the amendment still needed the approval of three-fourths of the states. On Aug. 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature approved the amendment, giving the measure the support it needed. On August 26, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment.

By the late 1900’s, women had the vote in almost every country where men had it. In 2015, women in Saudi Arabia voted in and won elections for the first time. Vatican City is the only country in which women are not allowed to vote but men have the right. However, some countries still deny voting rights to many or all their people.

November 5, 2018

Tomorrow, November 6, is election day in the United States and voters will have the chance to choose the people who decide the direction and tone of government. Today, most U.S. citizens over 18 years of age have the right to vote. This was not always so, however. Voting rights have been won gradually—and with much difficulty—over the history of the United States. In most places, only white men who owned property were originally allowed to vote. The property requirement was gradually dropped, but it was not until 1870 that the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ensured that men of all races could vote. To the dismay of many Americans, however, the amendment excluded women from voting. This exclusion fueled the woman suffrage movement that fought for decades to get women the right to vote. A few states and territories began giving women the right to vote in 1870, but for most American women, voting was illegal. On Nov. 5, 1872, 146 years ago today, a woman named Susan B. Anthony dared to vote—and she was arrested for it.

Susan B. Anthony helped organize the woman suffrage movement, which worked to get women the right to vote. Credit: Library of Congress

Anthony, a steadfast reformer who had already campaigned against slavery and the drinking of alcohol, helped organize the woman suffrage movement. In November 1872, Anthony and a group of women cast their ballots for president in Rochester, New York, days after persuading election inspectors to register them. The women were arrested for illegal voting, but Anthony, the “ringleader,” alone went to trial. 

Women on horseback participate in a suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., in 1914. Women at last gained the right to vote in 1920. Credit: Library of Congress

The trial’s presiding judge, Ward Hunt, did not let Anthony argue on her own behalf, and he directed the jury to find her guilty (instead of letting the jury decide). Judge Hunt fined Anthony $100 (a large sum at the time), but she vehemently refused to pay it. At the end of the trial, which attracted nationwide attention, Anthony made a speech that ended with the slogan “Resistance to Tyranny Is Obedience to God.” She was then released and faced no further prosecution.

The Anthony dollar, minted for circulation in 1979 and 1980, honored woman suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony. Credit: WORLD BOOK photo by James Simek

In the following decades, Anthony published several books arguing for woman suffrage. She also established the International Woman Suffrage Alliance and served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Unfortunately, Anthony died in 1906—14 years before women finally won the right to vote with ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. In 1979 and 1980, the U.S. government honored Anthony by minting $1 coins bearing her likeness. She was the first woman to be pictured on a U.S. coin in general circulation.

U.S. voting rights were not exactly settled as of 1920, however. The Twenty-third Amendment (1961) allowed citizens in Washington, D.C., to vote for president. The Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) prohibited the forced payment of poll taxes to vote. The Twenty-sixth Amendment (1966) lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. And, to counter voter suppression of minority groups, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination (with regard to voting and many other things) because of a person’s color, race, national origin, religion, or sex. 

June 22, 2016

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party supporters demonstrate outside the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Some hold portraits of slain civil rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
Credit: Library of Congress

On June 20, after an investigation that continued for more than half a century, federal and Mississippi authorities officially closed the books on one of the most heinous, racially motivated criminal cases in the history of the United States civil rights movement. Known as the “Freedom Summer” murder case or the “Mississippi Burning” murder case, it was notable as the first successful federal prosecution of a civil rights case in Mississippi. Outrage over the case helped gain passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In June 1964, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two white civil rights volunteers from New York City, and James Chaney, a black volunteer from Meridian, Mississippi, were working together in Meridian as part of the “Freedom Summer” campaign to help African Americans register to vote. The campaign was organized primarily by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a civil rights organization. At that time, many Southern States had used various methods to deprive blacks of their voting rights. On June 21, the three men were on their way to investigate the burning of an African American church in Neshoba County when they were taken into custody for speeding by a sheriff deputy. After the men were released from county jail in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a Ku Klux Klan mob followed their car, forced it off the road, and shot the men to death. The volunteers’ station wagon was found three days later. Initially classified as a missing persons case, the men’s disappearance sparked national outrage and an investigation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI found the bodies of the three men 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam.

In 1967, 18 men were tried on federal civil rights charges in the case. An all-white jury convicted seven of them of violating the civil rights of the Freedom Summer volunteers. At the time, no federal murder statutes existed, and the state never brought charges. None of the convicted men served more than six years in prison. The plot leader, Edgar Ray Killen, a Baptist minister, avoided a trial due to a hung jury. Killen was finally convicted in a 2005 trial based on new evidence unveiled in 2000. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 60 years in prison, where he remains today at age 91.

In 2010, federal authorities reopened the investigation in search of evidence to allow them to convict the remaining suspects. However, that investigation came to a halt 18 months ago after a witness backed out at the last minute after pledging to sign a sworn statement that would have implicated a suspect, according to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.

Monday’s decision means that no other suspects in the case will be prosecuted. “It has been a thorough and complete investigation,” Hood said. “I am convinced that during the last 52 years, investigators have done everything possible under the law to find those responsible and hold them accountable; however, we have determined that there is no likelihood of any additional convictions… Our state and our entire nation are a much better place because of the work of those three young men and others in 1964 who only wanted to ensure that the rights and freedoms promised in our Constitution were afforded to every single one of us in Mississippi.” In 2014, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner Presidential Medals of Freedom.

Other World Book articles

• Evers, Medgar
• Freedom riders
• Meredith, James

March 6, 2015

Police use force to break up a peaceful demonstration against voter discrimination in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. (AP/Wide World)

March 7 is the 50^th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” an important event in the civil rights movement in the United States. On that day in 1965, U.S. civil rights activists made the first of three attempts to march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital, Montgomery, in support of African American voting rights. Police attacked the marchers, injuring as many as 100. The Selma marches contributed to the U.S. Congress passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1965, 100 years after the American Civil War ended, unlike most white Americans, many blacks still lacked access to the political process. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and other discriminatory measures, as well as violence and intimidation, continued to prevent many blacks from voting. In January, two civil rights groups, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), led an effort to register blacks to vote in southern states. They also led peaceful protests in the state. An all-white police force attacked the SCLC and SNCC activists. On February 18, a state trooper shot and killed Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black protester.

On Sunday, March 7, about 600 marchers met in Selma to protest the voting policies and Jackson’s murder. The marchers hoped to go to the state capital to present Governor George Wallace with their grievances. The protesters marched only six blocks before local and state authorities stopped them at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and ordered them to disband. The marchers stood their ground. The police then attacked the marchers with clubs, whips, and tear gas. As many as 100 protesters were injured and 17 were hospitalized. Reports of the event on television news programs helped gain sympathy and political support for the marchers and their cause.

On March 9, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who had organized the original Selma march, led about 1,500 marchers to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma for a prayer service. Three white ministers marching with King were beaten by segregationists (people who support racial segregation). One of the ministers died two days later. On March 15, President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act was designed to establish protections to guarantee African Americans the right to vote.

On March 21, nearly 3,200 protesters gathered with King in Selma to march again. This time, federal troops protected them. By the time the marchers reached the Montgomery State Capitol on March 25, the crowd had grown to 25,000. At the Capitol, King demanded that African Americans be given the right to vote without unjust restrictions. On August 6, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. The act gave the vote to hundreds of thousands of Southern blacks who had never voted. It also led to a large increase in the number of African American elected officials.

A “Bridge Crossing Jubilee,” commemorating the Selma marches, is taking place in Selma on March 5-9, 2015. It will feature over 50 events, including an address by President Barack Obama and a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Other World Book articles:

• Civil rights (a Back in time article-1965)
• President of the United States (a Back in time article-1965)
• Selma marches

August 28, 2013

The civil rights march held on Aug. 28, 1963, known in full as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, became a turning point in the movement to end racial discrimination in the United States.

The ringing of bells, marches, commemorations, Twitter streams, and a major address by President Barack Obama are helping the international community mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the “I Have a Dream” speech given by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. The site was well chosen, as King referenced President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in his speech. In King’s speech—one of the most significant in United States history—he outlined his dream for the nation. He dreamed of a future when his children, and all children, would be judged on their character and not their skin color; a time when the sons of slaves and the sons of slaveholders would sit down together in brotherhood; a time when justice would become a reality for all. King also called on the government to improve the economic conditions of both black and white Americans.

The march and speech inspired U.S. legislators to pass new laws to improve racial equality. The Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination because of a person’s color, race, national origin, religion, or sex, was passed in 1964. The Voting Rights Act, which states that “no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting … shall be imposed … to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color,” was passed in 1965.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (© Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Today, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time, the hour at which King gave his speech, bells rang from sites, including New Hampshire, California, and Stone Mountain in Georgia, that were called out when he demanded that freedom be allowed to ring. Bells rang in nearly every U.S. state and from many places in Washington, D.C. At the Lincoln Memorial, a bell was rung by President Obama, who was joined by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, members of King’s family, and Georgia representative John Robert Lewis. Lewis was a keynote speaker at the march in 1963. In his speech, President Obama paid tribute to the heroes of the civil rights movement, arguing that their sacrifices benefitted all Americans. Stressing the link between liberty and livelihood, the president also decried growing economic inequality and called on Americans to work toward equal opportunity for all.

Internationally, commemorations will be held in London, at Trafalgar Square, as well as in such countries as Japan, Switzerland, and Liberia.

Additional World Book articles:

• “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Protestantism (a back in time article-1963)

June 24, 2013

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four ruling, today struck down a central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 4 of the act provided a formula for determining which states must submit any changes to existing voting laws to the Justice Department or to a federal court for approval. The Supreme Court ruled that Congress had not provided adequate justification for subjecting nine states, mostly in the South, to federal oversight.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that Section 4 is unconstitutional because the standards by which states are judged are “based on decades-old data and eradicated practices. . . . Nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically. In 1965, the states could be divided into two groups: those with a recent history of voting tests and low voter registration and turnout, and those without those characteristics. Congress based its coverage formula on that distinction. Today the nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were.”

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 protects the voting rights of African Americans and members of other minority groups in the United States. (National Archives)

The Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the dissent: “Congress’s decision to renew the act and keep the coverage formula was an altogether rational means to serve the end of achieving what was once the subject of a dream: the equal citizenship stature of all in our polity, a voice to every voter in our democracy undiluted by race.”

Congress last renewed the law in 2006. In the majority opinion, Roberts noted that Congress remains free to try to impose federal oversight on states where voting rights are at risk, but must base that oversight on contemporary data. Political experts suggest that given the current partisan deadlock in Congress, the imposition of new oversight is highly unlikely.

Additional World Book articles:

• Judicial review
• Poll tax
• Congress of the United States 1965 (a Back in Time article)