HAPPY 42nd B-DAY WOMEN'S EQUALITY DAY!

HAPPY WE-DAY to you!

On August 26, 2013, The League of Women Voters celebrates the forty-second birthday of "Women's Equality Day."

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
~~ Alice Walker, American poet, self-claimed womanist, activist an author of critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple which won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Stephen Spielberg directed the 1985 film which included Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg,Danny Glover and received 11 Oscar nominations winning none. Photo above right, Alice Walker, courtesy Wikimedia.

Women's Equality Day is a day proclaimed each year by the United States President to commemorate the granting of the vote to women throughout the country on an equal basis with men. Women in the United States were granted the right to vote on August 26, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified.

The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitutional was passed and prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920.
The amendment was first introduced many years earlier in 1878.


Every president has published a proclamation for Women's Equality Day since 1971 (93 years after the amendment was introduced) when legislation was first introduced in Congress by Bella Abzug.

This resolution was passed designating August 26 of each year as Women's Equality Day.

The Amendment was drafted by prominent civil rights leader, Susan B. Anthony (pictured above left) with assistant, American social activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (pictured right).

It took another 51 years to form Women's Equality Day - at the urgent request of Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY)(photo left) -- in 1971 the U.S. Congress designated August 26 as “Women’s Equality Day.”

For more information visit "League of Women voters recognizes anniverary of 19th Amendment" article by Christine Kneidinger.

In 1869, Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) an organization dedicated to gaining women's suffrage. Anthony insisted that Stanton become president as long as possible; Anthony served as vice-president-at-large until 1892 when she became president. (pictured right, Anthony and Stanton in later years - Stanton seated)

Photo below page 1 of the HOUSE BILL giving women the right to vote.

All photos courtesy of Wikimedia unless otherwise indicated. Please share this blog with your social media and professional networks. Thanks.

Visiting this blog frequently and sharing this with your social media and professional network is much appreciated. Thanks.