Though there were many acts of organizing, petitioning, picketing to win the right to vote throughout the 1800s, many recognize the first formal step in the lengthy and complicated struggle to change the Constitution to have taken place at the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. The meeting included more than 300 attendees, including organizers Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jane Hunt, Mary Ann McClintock, Lucretia Mott, and Martha Wright, and launched the Women's Suffrage Movement. It was here that the rights of American women were outlined in the Declaration of Sentiments and signed by 68 women and 32 men.

Among those to sign the Declaration was Frederick Douglass, an outspoken activist who fought for the freedom of enslaved people and whose beliefs and advocacy of equality extended to the women's suffrage movement. At the Convention, Douglass expressed impassioned support for suffrage and began working with famous suffragists like Stanton, Mott, and Susan B. Anthony. He remained influential in the movement until his death in 1895. 

"In respect to political rights, we hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man. We go farther and express our conviction that all political rights which it is expedient for man to exercise, it is equally so for women."     - Frederick Douglass

The amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1878, and champions for voting rights worked tirelessly, but their strategies often varied. Some focused on passing suffrage acts in individual states and achieved their goals in nine western states by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in courts. Some suffragists used more active tactics such as picketing, silent vigils, and hunger strikes where many were met with fierce resistance in the form of heckling, jail time, and sometimes physical abuse. 

By 1916, almost all major suffrage organizations agreed on the singular strategy of a constitutional amendment. So when New York adopted women's suffrage in 1917 and President Wilson changed his position in favor of support for the amendment in 1918, the political balance began to shift. The House of Representatives passed the amendment on May 21, 1919. The Senate followed two weeks later on June 4.

By the middle of 1920, 35 states had voted to ratify the amendment, four refused to consider it resolution for various reasons (Connecticut, Vermont, North Carolina, and Florida), and the remaining stated had rejected it altogether. Tennessee became the battleground when Harry T. Burn, a 24-year-old legislator, who was set to vote against the amendment switched his cote on the Tennessee state house floor at the urging of his mother to "be a good boy" and vote for women's suffrage. 

As a result, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18th, 1920, on agreement of three-fourths of the states. On August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification and the 19th Amendment was officially enacted, constitutionally prohibiting the states and federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. 

"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.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

Sojourner Truth (1797 - Nov 26, 1883)

A former slave, Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women's rights. At the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, Truth delivered what is now recognized as one of the most famous speeches in American history, "Ain't I a Woman?" Truth would not settle to see Black men on equal footing with white men, only to leave women without voting rights. Until the end of her life in Battle Creek, Michigan, Truth spoke on behalf of the less privileged and is remembered today as one of the nation's first feminists and foremost abolitionists. 

Susan B. Anthony (Feb 15, 1820 - Mar 13, 1906)

Anthony was an abolitionist and crusader for the women's suffrage movement. Alongside Stanton, she founded the Women's Loyal National League for the abolition of slavery and the American Equal Rights Association for equal rights for both women and Black people. She was president of the National Woman Suffrage Association (1892-1900) and toured the United States giving speeches, circulating petitions, and organizing local women's rights organizations. She is one of the few who dedicated time to distributing portraits of reformers to mold the public image of the women's rights movement.  

Harriet Tubman (Mar 1822 - Mar 10, 1913)

Settling in New York after her time as an Underground Railroad conductor and Union scout, spy, and nurse, Tubman began actively promoting women's rights. Ideals of racial and gender equality inspired Tubman's activism for the rest of her life and she participated in suffrage conventions organized by both Black and white women. For example, she supported the NWSA, which opposed the 15th Amendment granting the vote to Black men but not women, nd also spoke and sang at an 1896 convention where the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was founded. She was friendly with prominent white suffragists and helped inform their understanding of the particular struggles Black women faced in the fight for suffrage and equality. Tubman continued to give speeches across New York, Boston, and Washington D.C. sharing her experiences of suffering in the war and railroad movement in order to prove the equality of women and men. 

Ida B. Wells-Barnett (Jul 16, 1862 - Mar 25, 1931)

Wells-Barnett was a prolific investigative journalist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the 1890s. She spent much of her life fighting against racism and sexism of white Southerners, and her politics were particularly galvanized in Memphis where she owned and wrote her own newspaper, The Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. Wells-Barnett fought tirelessly for the right of all women to vote despite facing racism within the suffrage movement. She took part in the first suffrage parade in 1913, in Washington, D.C. organized by the NAWSA as the sole Black woman in the Illinois delegation and marched despite being asked to move to the back of the procession. At the same time, she furthered the cause of Black feminism by highlighted the link between gender and racial discrimination. For Wells-Barnett, suffrage was a means for Black women to become politically involved and increase their representation in office. She went on to found and co-found a variety of civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, the National Association of Colored Women, and the Alpha Suffrage Club.  

Adella Hunt Logan (Feb 10, 1863 - Dec 10, 1915)

Logan was a teacher, administrator, and activist known primarily for her work in education, public health and women's rights. Logan became only the second woman to join the faculty at the Tuskegee Institute in 1883 where she formed close friendships with Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and W.E.B. DuBois, cofounder of the NAACP. Logan played a pivotal role in the development of the curriculum there, as the school's first librarian, she stocked the library with material on women's suffrage. Logan taught English, social studies, and later expanded the program to include mathematics and literature. Additionally, Logan joined the Tuskegee Woman's Club in 1895 where she led discussions and debates on the topics of racial uplift, education, prison reform, and women's rights. Because Logan was able to pass as white, she often easily attended meetings held by white suffragists without feeling the tension and segregation many other Black women did, though this reportedly took a significant toll on her emotional health over time. Logan wrote essays noting that if white women enjoyed protections related to their gender and race deserved voting rights, how much more then did Black people deserve the vote to ensure their access to liberty? She raised a similar argument in the September 1912 NAACP journal The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races which was devoted entirely to women's suffrage. Logan's essay, Colored Women as Voters, described Black women as responsible mothers and thinking citizens, refuting entrenched stereotypes that portrayed them negatively. She argued that without voting rights, these mothers were unable to have access to the political process through which they could secure adequate public school funding that would provide for their children the education they so deeply cared about their children receiving.  

Mary Church Terrell (Sept 23, 1863 - Jul 24, 1954)

Terrell was part of the rising Black middle and upper class who used their position to fight racial discrimination. She actively embraced woman's suffrage, which she saw as essential to elevating the status of Black women, and effectively, the entire race. Terrell earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees and spent two years teaching at Wilburforce College before moving to Washington, D.C. to teach at M Street Colored High School. Her activism was especially sparked in 1892 when an old friend, Thomas Moss, was lynched in Memphis because his business was viewed as competition and Terrell joined forces with Wells-Barnett in anti-lynching campaigns. However, Terrell's life work would focus on a strategy based on the power of equal opportunity and advancement through education, work, and community activism. Her words "lifting as we climb" became the motto of the National Association of Colored Women, the organization she cofounded in 1896 and led as president from 1896 to 1901. During the years leading toward the passage of the 19th Amendment, Terrell worked tirelessly to campaign for women's suffrage, writing and speaking extensively among mainstream organizations and picketing at the Wilson White House in zeal with the National Woman's Party. In 1909, Terrell was also among the founders and charter members of the NAACP, and in 1910 she cofounded the College Alumnae Club, later renamed the National Association of University Women. Following the passage of the 19th Amendment, Terrell continued to focus on broader civil rights and in 1940 she published her autobiography detailing her experience with discrimination. In 1948, she became the first Black member of the American Association of University Women after winning and anti-discrimination lawsuit. In 1950, she challenged segregation in public spaces by protesting the John R. Thompson Restaurant in Washington, D.C. and was victorious when the Supreme Court ruled that segregated eating facilities were unconstitutional in 1953, just four years before her passing.

Carrie Chapman Catt (Jan 9, 1859 - Mar 9, 1947)

Catt succeeded Anthony as the NAWSAs president in 1900 and helped found the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) in 1902 promoting women's rights in more than 30 countries. She also played a role in organizing the International Congress of Women in 1915, held in The Hague, Netherlands, and attended by more than 1,000 women worldwide which called for an end to the war and established a permanent international court that would settle disputes between nations. In 1916 Catt revealed her "Winning Plan" to push for women's suffrage at both the federal level and on a state-by-state basis, which received a significant boost two years later when President Woodrow Wilson gave his first support to the cause. There is some controversy surrounding statements Catt made in 1917 to garner support for suffrage among Southern white supremacists who were concerned enfranchising Black women would weaken the white vote. Later in 1917, she wrote an article for the NAACP where she seemed to double back and argue, "there will never be true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed had his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in the government." After the success of the 19th Amendment, Catt retired as the president of the NAWSA and went on to establish the League of Women Voters in 1920 which remains active today in protecting and expanding voting rights, published the book Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement in 1923, was awarded the Chi Omega National Achievement Award in 1940 by her friend Eleanor Roosevelt, and was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame and the National Women's Hall of Fame, and continued advocating for social justice, child labor practices, disarmament, and Jewish refugee relief throughout her life. 

Dr. Alice Paul (Jan 11, 1885 - Jul 9, 1977)

After the deaths of Stanton and Anthony, it was Paul who helped to refocus the varied strategies toward a singular effort on the passage of a federal suffrage amendment. Paul also founded the National Woman's Party (NWP) in 1916 which withheld its support from existing political parties until women had gained the right to vote. In 1917, Paul and the NWP picketed outside the White House - the first time any group had protested at this location. On charges of "obstructing traffic", they were sentenced to jail. Paul, herself, served seven months, during which time the women went on hunger strikes. Doctors threatened to send Paul to an insane asylum and force-fed her through a tube. In November 1917, the superintendent ordered over forty guards to attack the Silent Sentinels who battered, beat, and choked the women, some to a state of unconsciousness, in what the women described as a "Night of Terror". Paul continued to advocate for women's rights after the certification of the 19th Amendment, founding the World Woman's Party which served as the NWP's international organization until 1954 at which point she was instrumental in incorporating language regarding gender equality in the United Nations Charter and establishing a permanent UN Commission on the Status of Women. In the 1960s, she also played a key role in getting sex included in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Even though the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, many women of color were unable to exercise their right to vote even though they rallied alongside white suffragists. Many women of color remained disenfranchised until the mid-20th century with some states preventing them from voting on contrived grounds, such as literacy tests, poll taxes, voting ID requirements, intimidation, and claims regarding the legitimacy of residence. 

It was not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - 45 years after the enactment of the 19th Amendment - that Black women were able to exercise their right to vote without restrictions. 

Even after Burn's deciding vote, anti-suffrage legislators tried desperately to nullify the previous vote. On July 30, 1971, following the nationwide Women's Strike for Equality in 1970, Representative Bella Abzug from New York introduced a bill that pushed for a day in recognition of women's rights. Other Congresswomen such as Shirley Chisholm and Patsy Mink also applied pressure for such acknowledgement. 

President Richard Nixon issued Proclamation 4147 in 1972, designating August 26, 1972 as Women's Rights Day, marking the first official proclamation of Women's Equality Day.

On August 16, 1973, during the ongoing battles over the Equal Rights Amendment, the U.S. Congress approved H.J. Res. 52, officially designating August 26 as Women's Equality Day. The resolution authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation commemorating the day in 1920 when American women first secured the right to vote. 

President Nixon responded by issuing Proclamation 4236 that same day for Women's Equality Day, in which he emphasized that while the struggle for women's suffrage was a significant first step, further efforts were needed to achieve full and equal participation of women in American society.

Every U.S. president has since continued to issue an annual proclamation designating August 26 as Women's Equality Day, continuing the tradition initiated by President Nixon in 1972. 

These resources, compiled by the National Education Association, are intended to help K-12 learners have a more complete understanding of the suffrage movement and the 19th Amendment in particular, make connections to current events, and inspire them to keep pushing for global justice and equality for women.

19 Ways to Teach the 19th Amendment (Grades K-12)

Women's Equality Day Infographic (Grades K-12)

100 Years Ago, the 1913 Women's Suffrage Parade (Grades K-12)

National Women's History Museum Woman's Suffrage Online Exhibit (Grades K-12)

Scholastic's Women's Suffrage Teacher Activity Guide (Grades 1-8)

Women Win the Vote History Archive from Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (Grades 5-8)

Education Resources Archive from National Women's History Museum (Grades 6-12)

Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment: Teaching with Documents from the National Archives (Grades 6-12)

Votes for Women: Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921 from the Library of Congress (Grades 9-12)

Women's Suffrage: Manuscript Division from the Library of Congress (Grades 9-12)

Women's Suffrage Archive from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (Grades 9-12)