Celebrating Women's Equality Day
Today marks an important milestone, the day women in our nation gained the right to vote with the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920.
The women's suffrage movement was a long one, lasting more than 40 years, taking flight in 1878 with the introduction of the bill into Congress on the behest of suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (who was arrested in 1872 for voting illegally in the Presidential elections).
Women's Equality Day was first celebrated in 1971 after the Congress passed a resolution to mark the occasion annually. Women's rights organizations and groups that work in the area of voting rights celebrate this day by holding seminars and workshops that address issues and problems currently faced by women in the country. Schools and educators take the day as an opportunity to educate students of the long and often difficult journey of the women's rights movement to gain basic human rights.
