100 for the 19th

Susan B. Anthony's home in Rochester, New York

Today marks the 100th anniversary of Tennessee voting to become the final state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 19th Amendment said that the right to vote cannot be determined by gender. After decades of activity many women in America would now be "given" the right to vote. There were twenty states where women already had the right to vote, including the trail blazing state of Wyoming which passed legislation in 1869, quickly followed by Utah in 1870 and Colorado by referendum in 1893. I grew up in Connecticut and always thought of it as a very progressive state, but just realized it was behind many other states. 

I've always valued the right to vote and still remember going to the polls with my parents when I was in elementary school. But I never thought about what it meant to women of my mother's generation, some of whom could remember when the 19th Amendment was enacted. 

But the this Amendment didn't give the right to vote to all women.  In states with Jim Crow laws, Black women (and men) didn't get the right to vote until the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed, an event I can remember. I watched history take place all around me for the monumental right to vote. 

I raise a toast to Susan B. Anthony and the many women who pushed to ensure that my mother and I and my generation would be able to vote. I also raise a toast to those who kept pushing so that forty-five years after the 19th Amendment was passed, the right to vote was extended to those who had been waiting to be able to vote.

Primary Day selfie, September 2018

We didn't have these cute stickers when I first voted in 1972, and that first ballot was absentee while I lived in Tennessee for graduate school. But to the best of my recollection I've only missed one vote, a primary vote for Mayor in 2009. During my working years I generally voted in the morning so nothing could come up later in the day to keep me from the polls. For a number of years I worked for an elected official and election days were busy days. I definitely didn't want to miss voting.  

I've been fascinated reading about this chapter in history. I became so intrigued in researching this post that it's now officially the day after Tennessee's ratification. I'm adding a link to my graduate alma mater's page on Nashville and Vanderbilt's commemoration this month. 

As ever, thanks for visiting and take good care. Stay safe and keep cool.