Happy birthday, Alice Paul!
The best way to honor her legacy? Register to vote.
It’s a Man’s World … Unless Women Vote!
It’s Election Day! Women make up over half of the U.S. population, and their voices are crucial at the polls. Yet in 2014, less than half of eligible women voters reported voting. Off-year elections, including the 2015 election season, are a time when young women are even less likely to vote.
Women fought for the right to vote. It’s time to use it! Take a second to register to vote or update your record.
October 23, 1915: Women March in New York for Suffrage Parade
On this day in 1915, 25,000 women marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City advocating for women’s voting rights. Five years later, the 19th amendment was passed in 1920 and granted 26 million women (half of the population at the time) the right to vote.
Dive deep into the Suffrage Movement with American Experience’s “Battle for Suffrage” article, which details key figures, events, and victories throughout the Suffrage movement.
Photo: Photograph shows four women carrying ballot boxes on a stretcher during a suffrage parade in New York City, New York (Library of Congress).
Photo: Suffrage parade, NYC, Oct. 23, 1915 (Library of Congress).
100 years ago today!
Women might have won the right to vote, but the fight for gender equality is far from over.
Learn more.
7 Women of Color Who Fought for Gender Equality
August 26 is Women’s Equality Day. The date commemorates a historic step for women’s equality: the passage of the 19th Amendment, which secured women’s right to vote, on August 26, 1920.
Women’s Equality Day is a time to celebrate the women who fought for the right to participate in the democratic process, but it’s also a day to acknowledge that the amendment didn’t further the equality of all women.
Women of color routinely faced racism within the women’s suffrage movement. After the passage of the 19th Amendment, state laws and racial discrimination continued to keep women of color from voting. It wasn’t until 1956 that any Native Americans could vote in Utah, and black women remained effectively disenfranchised until the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Even today we continue to see passage of a variety of laws that threaten to prevent women, especially women of color, from voting.
Of course women of color haven’t remained silent in the face of these setbacks. Although they have often been the leading voices and innovators in the fight for equality, history has a tendency to erase their legacy and voices. So in honor of Women’s Equality Day, here are seven amazing women of color who have helped fight for — and win — greater equality for women.
1. Sojourner Truth (1796–1883)
Famous for her 1851 speech “Ain’t I a Woman?,” Sojourner Truth was a strong abolitionist and women’s rights advocate. Today her speech still resonates and continues to encapsulate the intersection of race and womanhood.
2. Ida B. Wells (1862–1931)
Ida B. Wells was a prolific investigative journalist and suffragist who campaigned tirelessly for anti-lynching legislation. Her activism began in 1884 when she refused to give up her train car seat, leading to a successful lawsuit against the train company. Motivated in part by racism within the women’s suffrage movement, Wells went on to found and co-found a variety of civil rights organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Association of Colored Women, and the Alpha Suffrage Club.
Visit AAUW’s website to read the full blog post.
In honor of Women’s Equality Day (this coming Monday!), we devote our Throwback Thursday post to last year’s get-out-the-vote campaign. Here’s to women’s suffrage…
The fight against allowing women to become full citizens looks shockingly familiar, as suffrage opponents cast the women’s rights advocates as a bunch of unmarriagable, ugly, unfeminine single ladies, who were at the same time overly sexually aggressive, emasculating, and neglectful of their homes and children.
Look at this awesome woman protesting for her rights!
March 3 this year is the 100th anniversary of the 1913 march for women’s suffrage.
A map of the march for women’s suffrage in 1913
On March 3, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the landmark 1913 women’s march for suffrage! Is it just us, or is it kind of unbelievable that women’s rights to vote isn’t even 100 years old?
(Above: a suffragist being arrested)
This weekend, celebrate the bold, brave band of suffragists who marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on March 3, 1913, proudly demanding their right to vote.
Help us celebrate these women, and our history, by taking a picture of your own suffrage hat and posting it on AAUW’s Facebook page!
Harriet Tubman: abolitionist, humanist, suffragist, awesome.
Harriet Tubman is known for:
- escape from slavery
- work in the Underground Railroad
- advocacy for women’s suffrage
- general awesomeness
Tell us: Who’s making Black history in 2013?
