The 19th Amendment

In this episode, in the midst of the centennial anniversary of women's securing the right to vote, we focus on the 19th Amendment. The perpetual struggle for U.S. voting rights has been fraught with conflict, and the fight for women’s suffrage was no exception. Even after the 19th Amendment was passed, women of color were denied the opportunity to vote: Black women were kept from voting through insidious practices like poll taxes and long wait times (some which still exist today); Indigenous women, many of whom inspired the initial Euro-American push for women’s rights and suffrage, were not considered citizens; and Asian women could not naturalize for citizenship. In fact, until the mid-1950s, laws enacted by Congress—including the Page Act—made it very difficult for Asian women who immigrated to the U.S. to become citizens.   Because voting rights are central to our democracy, we devote this episode to the 19th Amendment, its history and the road ahead.  Helping us to understand the power and the promise of the vote and what this means for women’s empowerment are two very special guests:   Sally Roesch Wagner is a writer, historian and director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center.  She was awarded one of the first doctorates in the country for work in women’s studies (UC Santa Cruz).  She is author of "The Women's Suffrage Movement”; "Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists"; and "We Want Equal Rights: How Suffragists Were Influenced by Native American Women.” Melanie Campbell is the executive director and CEO for the National Coalition on Black Voter Participation and a nationally recognized expert in civic engagement, election reform and coalition building.  She is a convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable Intergenerational Public Policy Network. Support the show