"There's Still More To Do"
Alexander Brooks, History Section Member
Since 1995, the National Women's History Alliance has dedicated a theme to each year's March celebration of National Women's History Month. In 2020, that theme was to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of women's suffrage and the passing of the 19th Amendment. Because many of celebrations were curtailed by the events of that year, the theme has been extended for 2021 to “Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to Be Silenced.” The passing of the 19th Amendment was pivotal, but it was by no means the end of the struggle for women's voices to be heard.
The spirit of Jim Crow legislation and a women's rights movement that often discriminated against non-white women prevented all women from gaining voting rights that day. Black women had to fight for another forty-five years to gain their own right to vote through the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The story of women's voting rights and the struggles women continue to face in the United States cannot be fully explained in one moment or one day on a calendar. Genuine progress on these issues was, and is, limited, piecemeal, and slow-moving. 1920 is but one date on a larger timeline of struggle and activism for women's rights in U.S. history. With hope, there be many more to add to future calendars.
