Over seven decades and three generations, women faced contempt, physical violence and even prison time for demanding equality.
2020 will mark the centennial anniversary of women achieving the right to vote. What can we learn from the suffrage movement? Nearly 100 years later, what inequalities are women still working to overcome?
A women's rights convention in New York launched the suffrage movement in 1848, but it would take more than half a century of advocating and educating before a real victory was achieved for women's voting rights.
The 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, asserts: "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."
Who were the major players in the movement and how did it gain momentum? What other issues did suffragists fight for? Why were some women opposed to their own enfranchisement?
Who were some of the unsung heroes and heroines of history and how did they help shape the women's suffrage movement? How important was the involvement of women of color? How did the women's movement affect later civil rights movements in the U.S.?
What can the history of women's suffrage teach us, as voting rights and women's rights are threatened once again?
Guests:
- Elaine Weiss, award-winning journalist and author of "The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote"
- Sally Roesch Wagner, lecturer, author and editor of "The Women's Suffrage Movement"
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This interview aired on Wednesday, March 20, 2019.
