At the 11th annual Women’s Rights Convention in 1866, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper exhorted the white suffragists gathered to welcome women of color. The poet, abolitionist, and suffragist declared: “We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity….Society cannot afford to neglect the enlightenment of any class of its members.”

In 1893, starting with just $25 in the bank, a grassroots equal suffrage campaign – led by Elizabeth Piper Ensley, an African-American educator, and Ellis Meredith, a Denver journalist – succeeded in securing the right for women to vote in Colorado.

In 1912, 16-year-old Mabel Ping Hua-Lee joined with other Chinese American immigrant girls and women who rode on horseback in New York’s Greenwich Village to lead thousands of marchers for a women’s suffrage parade.

In 1910, Alice Paul, who had participated in hunger strikes and brutal force-feedings while protesting for women’s suffrage in Great Britain, brought her leadership and militancy to her home country of America. Among her first actions, Paul organized a Women’s Suffrage Procession on the day before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration in 1913. She led the formation in 1916 of the National Woman’s Party, which believed in a pointed, militant strategy for a national amendment.

Headed by Paul, the NWP organized the “Silent Sentinels,” who stood in silence for many hours, six days a week, in front of the White House, the first group to ever picket there. Beginning on Jan. 9, 1917, some 2,000 women in all picketed. The authorities arrested and jailed hundreds of the protesters, beating many and confining others in cold and unsanitary conditions.

In 1917, as the Silent Sentinels picketed outside the White House, Mary Church Terrell became the first black woman to stand alongside white suffragists as they stood day in and day out and demanded the vote for women. Paul and the other women protested there until June 4, 1919, when both houses of Congress adopted the 19th amendment, which then went to the states.

These women are among many, many thousands who worked to achieve suffrage for women, and some key men such as Frederick Douglass.

Finally, victory came. One-hundred years ago this past week, on Aug. 18, 1920, Tennessee legislators ratified – by one vote – the 19th Amendment providing the right to vote to women in the United States. Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify suffrage (three-quarters of the states as needed for approval). Its passage capped more than seven decades of passionate activism. Over time, women withstood arrests; beatings; taunts; ridicule; infighting and disagreements over tactics; bitter disappointments; and constant attempts to render females as invisible and less-than.

The 19th Amendment became official on Aug. 26, 1920 – 100 years ago this week – when Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified it by proclamation. In 1971, Congress designated this anniversary as Women’s Equality Day through a bill that Congresswoman Bella Abzug championed.

“Pick Up the Torch”

The breakthrough of 1920, with the 19th Amendment, was only partial. The voting franchise – what the 1848 Declaration of Rights and Sentiments of the first Women’s Rights Convention called the “first right as a citizen” – only became a reality for millions of nonwhite people through victories and laws later in the 20th century.

The Silent Sentinals picket near the White House in 1917.
Photo: National Woman’s Party

Watching the events of recent years, we see again and again how we can never take voting for granted in the United States. Across the nation, the rights of people of color, Latinx citizens, younger voters, and working-class and lower-income people are consistently targeted. This is done more often by the Republican Party, whose leaders have openly admitted that the party benefits from lower turnout, particularly among minority voters.

This centennial marks a time to honor the heroes who crusaded for suffrage; understand how that spirit and persistence is necessary to inform the present; and to shape the nature of American democracy in the future. Will the U.S. become more and more a place that guarantees voting rights for all citizens? Or retrench in those guarantees?

The anniversary is even more meaningful by Kamala Harris becoming the first woman of color and South Asian person to accept a major party’s vice-presidential nomination. Saluting the women who have battle “not just for their vote, but for a seat at the table,” Harris said, “These women inspired us to pick up the torch, and fight on.” Often, generations of women are picking up the torch of their female ancestors, such as Marguerite Kearns, a New Mexico scholar, writer, and activist. Kearns is inspired in her work for women’s history and rights by the models of her grandmother and aunt, who were suffragists in New York State.

Like the suffragists, those seeking to ensure voting rights understand the enormous stakes of the 2020 election. The nation is dealing with the worst pandemic in a century, COVID-19, for which the President Donald Trump, has no national plan; economic collapse; and the reckoning that Black Lives Matter has brought to the fore. As critically, the right to vote and the U.S. election in 2020 are under continual threat by Trump, and his Administration and the Republican Party leaders who enable him, as he daily lies about the security of the voting process.

In this spirit – of honoring women’s suffrage at 100 and recognizing where we stand today – here are tours and events, virtual and in-person, to delve into one of the greatest battles for rights in U.S. history. Understanding that the work continues at this precipice of American history, Mindful Walker provides sites, information, and some inspiration to ensure and support the right and ability to vote and to have a free, fair, and secure election.

Women’s Vote 100: The official site of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial. Commission captures many fascinating, inspiring, dramatic, and yet lesser-known stories of the women’s suffrage movement. Find out about how Latinx women worked for women’s suffrage in New Mexico and the ways that native peoples, such as the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy, inspired and influenced some early suffragists due to the rights women in those societies had possessed before European colonization. The site offers rich resources, such as photos, podcasts, articles, and events listings from across the country.
https://www.womensvote100.org/learn/

Alice Paul, 1915
Photo: Harris & Ewing

Our Story: Portraits of Change: This interactive photo mosaic and art installation depicts a portrait of civil rights activist, anti-lynching crusader, and suffragist Ida B. Wells. Artist Helen Marshall created this massive 25-feet by 100-feet artwork to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. The final portrait is both an art installation that will be on view and an online mosaic.

The mosaic is comprised of thousands of photos that tell numerous stories of the suffrage movement. As part of commemorating the 100th anniversary, it will be on view at Union Station in Washington, D.C., from August 24-28. In the online version, you can click on 100 portraits and stories to learn about various trailblazing women, from Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, the first woman to ever address the U.S. Congress, to Mary Ann Shadd Cary, the first African-American female newspaper editor in North America.
https://www.ourstory100.com/

19th Amendment Centennial Story Map: This interactive site, from the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation (GVSHP), looks at a center of suffrage and women’s rights history in New York’s Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. Various images reflect the fierce intensity of the movement. “Brilliant Army of Women in White in Fifth Avenue Parade for Votes,” reads a banner headline, coupled with a photograph from The Evening World, about the suffrage parade of Oct. 23, 1915.

These neighborhoods, as the GVSHP relates, were long centers of political ferment and progressive activism. The Story Map’s places and events cover a sweep of decades from the late 18th century, starting with Thomas Paine’s evolution to support women’s suffrage, to the 20th century.

Click on the blocks of the map and each reveals text about a person, place, or event, paired with portraits, photographs, publications, and building photographs. In the 1880s, Sarah Smith Garnet, who resided at 175 MacDougal Street, founded the Equal Suffrage League, the first organization centered on the voting franchise for black women. Garnet was the first female African-American principal in the New York City school system. Clara Lemlich, who lived at 278 East 3rd Street, at age 23 led the Uprising of 20,000, one of the most important strikes of garment workers, in 1909. Blacklisted for her labor union activities, she devoted herself to the women’s suffrage movement. She helped found the Wage Earner’s Suffrage League, an alternative for working women to the middle- and upper-class suffrage organizations.
https://www.villagepreservation.org/resources/19th-amendment-centennial-storymap/

The Vote: As the main subtitle on this PBS American Experience indicates, “Women Weren’t Given the Vote. They Took It.” This two-part documentary shows the dramatic events, combined with excellent commentary, of the years 1909-1920, which saw women finally realize the goal of a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. It brings to life the dedication and courage of many suffragists; the contentious debates that arose over whether to use militant tactics such as hunger strikes; and the momentous events in 1919 and 1920 surrounding the 19th amendment’s ratification. The documentary traces the contending strategies of Paul and the National Woman’s Party and Carrie Chapman Catt and the National American Woman Suffrage Association and yet illuminates many lesser-known stories of the movement.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/vote/

Adelina “Nina” Otero-Warren, seen circa 1900, was one of the leading suffragists in New Mexico’s suffrage movement. She was descended from an influential Hispano family and became the first female superintendent of Santa Fe’s public schools.
Photo: Bain News Collection, Library of Congress

Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote: This National Archives site examines the “relentless struggle” throughout American history to obtain voting rights for all women. Through online exhibits and social media that showcase historic documents, photos, and videos, the exhibit highlights themes ranging from who decides who votes and why did women fight for the vote to the 19th amendment’s impact and what voting rights struggles persist. It makes women’s experiences many years ago very real: In 1877, Mariann Hosner petitioned Congress for the right to vote, saying it would have saved Hosner and her children $500. In the petition, Hosner said a measure to run a “costly road” through her farm failed by just one vote, and she was unable to cast a ballot on the issue.
https://museum.archives.gov/rightfully-hers

NYC Landmarks and the Vote at 100: This interactive story map, from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), focuses the achievement of women’s suffrage in New York State “through the lens” of the city’s designated landmarks. Its segments include the mainstream movement; suffragists, immigrants, and the labor movement; young insurgents; African-American suffragists; “suffragents” (male supporters); and institutions.

Dig into the story map by scrolling its content, clicking on the maps of pertinent landmarks, and checking out a timeline. In offering profiles and shedding light on the work for suffrage, the story map contains photos of landmarks; biographies; portraits; clippings from newspapers and other periodicals; and images of leaflets, posters, and postcards. From the map links, you can read even more through the LPC’s landmarks designation reports.

https://nyclpc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=6bd7801af0c64191b8e6376516df781e

Ways To Protect Your Vote Today

One-hundred years after women won the right to vote under the 19th Amendment and decades after many others finally obtained the franchise, voting rights remain vulnerable in 2020. Efforts are rife to suppress voting among people of color and Native Americans, in lower-income neighborhoods, and among young people. The tactics include the closing of polling places; indiscriminate voter roll purges; reduced voting hours; and the establishment of at-large local election offices to dilute the minority vote.

In 2020, the very ability to vote is in more danger because of a vastly unpopular President, Trump, and his supporters in public office. At this time of the risks due to COVID, Trump has sought to undermine mail-in voting; has lied repeatedly by saying that mail-in voting is full of fraud, which voting officials and independent groups have conclusively disproven; and has sown doubts about whether he will accept the Presidential election results.

Recently, during an interview on Fox News, Trump claimed he would send law enforcement to polling places, which bigots did during the Jim Crow era particularly in order to intimidate voters. This is illegal under federal and state laws, according to the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy. This nonprofit group is dedicated to fighting attacks, in the U.S. and abroad, on the right to “free, fair, and fully informed self-government” though legal actions, mobilization campaigns, projects to stop the spread of disinformation, and other means.

Considering these perils, many groups are working to ensure a fair, secure election and support voting rights and people’s ability to vote, whether in-person on Election Day, early, or by mail.

Here are important resources:

Vote.org: This large nonpartisan voting registration and get-out-the-vote technology platform has helped many millions of voters. For each state, essential voting info is available. Through its platform for all 50 states, people can register to vote; check registration status; locate your polling place; and find out deadlines.
https://www.vote.org/

NBC News Plan Your Note: This rich resource details everything people need to know about mail-in and early in-person voting. Plug in your state and see the exact deadlines, rules, and answers to questions such as “After I vote by mail, can I track my ballot?”
https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/plan-your-vote-state-by-state-guide-voting-by-mail-early-in-person-voting-election/index.html

All In Together – Women Leading Change: This group’s mission is to encourage and empower voting-age women and those who identify as women to participate in civic and political life in the U.S. All In Together (AIT) has access to voter guides for each state. Seeking to address the gender gap in government and politics, the group has initiatives and programs to prepare, train, and inspire women for civic education and leadership.
https://aitogether.org/

Fair Fight: Stacey Abrams founded Fair Fight after witnessing the many irregularities in the 2018 gubernatorial race that she narrowly lost in Georgia. This group established Fair Fight 2020 to fund, recruit, and train people for voter protection programs in 20 battleground states. It is aiming to curb voter suppression actions such as indiscriminate voter roll purges and rampant rejections of absentee ballot applications. Abrams and Fair Fight have been working hard to encourage people to plan and take early actions to vote; find out whether and how to track one’s vote; and sign up as a poll worker.
https://fairfight.com/fair-fight-2020/

What are the lessons of this history and of 2020? We understand even more how Russia, which a dictator rules, interfered in the 2016 Presidential election and continues to interfere in the 2020 election. We hear a President who has besmirched the democratic process and has hailed lower turnout among black voters in 2016 because it benefited him as Politico reported. We know once again that the right to vote requires constont activism and tending.

Flawed as it is, the democratic republic of the United States is one of the boldest experiments in self-government throughout history, and its survival is not a given from generation to generation. We lost a great soul this year who literally gave his body for the right to vote, the late Congressman John Lewis. As Lewis said, voting is “almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.”

Understanding what the suffragists passed down to us, we must ensure that all citizens can exercise the right to vote today and that we can pass down this “most powerful” of tools in a democracy to our children and grandchildren.