The road to women voting was long and arduous

August is National Women’s Suffrage month, commemorating the struggles women faced for the right to vote, gained through ratification of the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on Aug. 26, 1920.

The struggles began before the Civil War (1861-1865) when women began to speak out publicly against slavery. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and freed slave Sojourner Truth were joined by a few men, like Frederick Douglass, in speaking against slavery. Black women had formed anti-slavery and women’s rights societies by 1832.   

In New York, Stanton, Mott and Matilda Joslyn Gage had observed how Iroquois women wore comfortable dress allowing them to be active, had main rights to the children they bore and were respected by the men. Women worked as co-equals in tribal government and leadership.

These Nations and the abolition movement provided the model for designing the first national women’s rights meeting in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848. At the meeting, 68 women and 32 men signed the Declaration of Sentiments, advocating for equal rights, including the right for women to vote.

Until the Civil War, there had been agreement among abolitionists and suffragists to work for a suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution for all women. After the Civil War, Congress passed the 15^th Amendment, granting black men the right to vote, but failing to extend voting rights to women.

Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were determined to campaign for white women to gain the right to vote, while others supported the universal right for all women to vote. New suffrage groups formed. Meanwhile, some states introduced voter suppression laws, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, to prevent black men from voting, and white supremacists organized lynch mobs against black citizens.

In 1916, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns formed the National Woman’s Party (NWP) to work for a federal suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In January 1917, the NWP organized pickets in front of the White House.

By February, when the suffragists received pressure to stop picketing because of the Great War in Europe, they began using President Woodrow Wilson’s words supporting democracy in Europe to argue that the U.S. was not a democracy, since women did not have the right to vote.

Near the end of June 1917, picketers were arrested for “obstructing traffic.” By July, the arrests led to jail sentences. By September, some jailed suffragists began hunger strikes and were force-fed raw eggs and milk. They were tortured for demanding the freedom to vote.

By early 1918, the president was finally persuaded to support a federal amendment. The year began with the horrific “Spanish flu” that became a pandemic in the fall. This slowed, but didn’t stop, the work of the suffragists.

With Wilson’s support, Congress passed the Amendment and the 36 needed states ratified it to become law on August 26, 1920. While the 19^th Amendment was intended for all women, voter suppression continued to be an issue and it continues today.   

Kathy Brook and Eileen VanWie are co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Southern New Mexico.