Updated: August 1, 2025
“Women’s Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting the right to vote to women. The amendment was first introduced in 1878. In 1971, the U.S. Congress designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day.” – National Women’s History Alliance
When the 19th Amendment became law on August 26, 1920, 26 million adult female Americans were nominally eligible to vote. But full electoral equality was still decades away for many women of color who counted among that number. With the passage of the Snyder Act in 1924, American-born Native women gained citizenship. But until as late as 1962, individual states still prevented them from voting on contrived grounds, such as literacy tests, poll taxes and claims that residence on a reservation meant one wasn’t also a resident of that state. Asian American immigrant women were excluded from voting until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. Throughout much of the country the same voter suppression tactics that kept black men from the polls kept black women from voting, too. Literacy tests, poll taxes, voter ID requirements and intimidation and threats and acts of violence were all obstacles until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In Puerto Rico women’s voting rights were first given to literate women in 1929 and all Puerto Rican women in 1935. Yet literacy tests remained an effective means of keeping some Hispanic and other women of color from voting long after the federal amendment was passed. It took a 1975 extension of the Voting Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination against language minority citizens, to expand voting access to women who rely heavily on languages other than English. – PBS American Experience
Women’s Equality Day – Britannica
Women’s Equality Day Proclamation and Other Resources – National Women’s History Alliance
Women’s Equality Day – National Women’s History Museum
Why is August 26 known as Women’s Equality Day? – National Constitution Center
Women’s Equality Day Should be Every Day – The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
CWNY’s list of resources on the 19th Amendment 100th Anniversary – Center for the Women of New York (CWNY)
Aug. 6, 1965: Voting Rights Act signed into law
The Senate Passes the Voting Rights Act – U.S. Senate
Voting Rights Act of 1965 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 – Rock the Vote
The American Presidency Project: Remarks in the Capital Rotunda at the Signing of the Voting Rights Act – University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
Equal Rights Amendment
“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), first proposed in 1923, is an amendment to the United States Constitution that guarantees equality of rights under the law for all persons regardless of sex. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, property, employment, and other matters. Without the ERA, the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly guarantee that the rights it protects are held equally by all citizens without regard to sex. The first–and still the only–right that the U.S. Constitution specifically affirms and applies equally to women and men is the right to vote. The ERA would improve the United States’ standing in the world community with respect to human rights. The governing documents of many other countries affirm legal gender equality, however imperfect the global implementation of that ideal may be.
As of January 27, 2020, the ERA has satisfied the requirements of Article V of the Constitution for ratification (passage by two-thirds of each house of Congress and approval by three-fourths of the states).
Leading constitutional scholars agree that the ERA is now part of the Constitution. Because of issues raised about its unique ratification process, the Archivist of the United States has not yet taken the final ministerial step of publishing the ERA in the Federal Register with certification of its ratification as the 28th Amendment. Find out the history and which states have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment at equalrightsamendment.org.
Brenn Center for Justice at NYU
Equal Rights Amendment Explained
Equal Rights Amendment – Why it Matters