When the Nineteenth Amendment finally passed, the headlines said “Women Given Right To Vote”—but women were not given anything; they struggled for the right to vote. For decades, in the face of overwhelming challenges, brave women protested and picketed, marched and mobilized, were beaten and jailed, and finally won the right to vote. It is on their shoulders that we all stand today.
Doris Weatherford’s inspiring book, Victory for the Vote: The Fight for Women’s Suffrage and the Century that Followed, reminds us all that the trailblazing suffragists did not wait for change, they worked for change! This important book not only tells the story of the trailblazing suffragists of Seneca Falls; it also shares the stories of women of color whose heroism in the fight for women’s suffrage is too often unsung, but who are finally taking their rightful place in American history.
As Speaker of the House, it has been my priority to ensure that the halls of the U.S. Capitol reflect the full diversity of our history. It was my honor to bring a bronze bust of Sojourner Truth to rest under this dome of our democracy in commemoration of her immeasurable contributions to the cause of equality and those of all the women of color who fought for suffrage. This book stands as another fitting tribute to their sacrifice.
The story of America’s suffrage did not end with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Decades after our nation declared that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” women would have to fight for another right: the right to take our seat at the decision-making table.
When I first arrived, there were only 25 women in Congress. Back then, women weren’t considered a threat to the established, male-dominated power in Washington. When I ran for a leadership position that had been held by men for more than 200 years, the men asked, “Who said she could run?” Yet, the women of the House refused to sit on the sidelines. We knew our purpose and we knew our power—and we used it to make progress, demanding not only a seat at the table, but a seat at the head of the table.
When, as Democratic Leader, I went to my first meeting at the White House with President George W. Bush and House and Senate leaders, I realized that I was at a meeting unlike any other I—or any woman—had ever been to. As an Appropriator and as a Member of the Intelligence Committee, I attended meetings at the White House many times. But this was different.
As President Bush graciously welcomed me, all of a sudden, I felt very closed in to my seat. There I was with Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul: all the suffragists who fought so hard for the right to vote. And as they sat with me on that chair, I could hear them say, “At last we have a seat at the table.” And my first thought was “We want more!”
Today, remarkably, in the same Congress that will mark 100 years since women won the right to vote, we serve with more than 100 women Members—and with a woman Speaker! There is nothing more wholesome for our democracy than the increased participation and leadership of women in politics and government.
The women of the 116th Congress have made history, and now, they are making progress. Just like the suffragists of the past, the trailblazing women of the 116th Congress are fighting to ensure that every freedom, every liberty, and every right belongs to every American—including the right to be heard at the ballot box, which is the mainstay of our democracy. The suffragists’ cause continues in our fight against blatantly partisan, morally wrong voter suppression efforts that target communities of color.
Today, much more remains to be done to bring our nation closer to its founding promise of equality. We must defend and strengthen the progress we have made on equal pay for equal work, affordable childcare, quality healthcare, and other pillars of health and economic security for women and families—and to do that, we need every woman to be able to exercise her right to vote.
As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, we must channel the same pioneering spirit of America’s suffragists and rededicate ourselves to the important work left to be done to ensure that all can enjoy the blessings of liberty in America.
Since my dear friend, the Honorable Geraldine Ferraro, wrote the original foreword to Part One of this book just over twenty years ago, much progress has been forged in the fight for equality. But it is my hope that twenty years from now, the foreword to this wonderful book will be written in a time when even more progress has been forged—and that it will be written by a woman in the White House!
Victory for the Vote will help encourage that change, educating America about the struggle for suffrage and engaging and empowering the next generation of history-makers and game-changers to make a difference. Together, we must continue our progress for women and for the cause of equality—because, when women succeed, America succeeds!
In the Beginning, 1637 to 1840
It was a tiny ad placed in an obscure newspaper. The Seneca County Courier, a weekly paper delivered to farms in the cold country of upstate New York, ran just three sentences in its edition for July 14, 1848. The simple announcement invited women to a discussion of “the social, civil, and religious rights of women.”
This little news release shook the earth. From the tiny town of Seneca Falls in 1848, a mighty flood of disruptive ideas reached around the world and into the twenty-first century. The global expansion of human rights for women—the notion that women are full human beings and that women’s rights are human rights—began here, in a little country church that we, the recipients of hard-fought victories, thoughtlessly have allowed to be destroyed. Ideas live on after buildings go, however, and the voices of these women still echo with words we need to hear.
Why Seneca Falls, New York? Why July 1848? The answer, of course, is that ideas find their time and place in people. The unpretentious circumstances of many women’s lives, however, often obscure the power of their minds. We may find it difficult to believe that culture-changing concepts can emerge from a tea table in a country kitchen, but the humble truth is that it was Seneca Falls because Lucretia Mott visited Elizabeth Cady Stanton there. It was 1848 because it was the first time that these busy mothers could manage to get together after their vow to do so in 1840. And the other truth is that both of these women were not only brilliant, but also possessed extraordinary courage.
It is altogether typical of the history of American women that it was their moral sense, their mutual effort to do good for others, that drew Mott and Stanton together. For them and for many other women, the cause of women’s rights long would be subordinated to other moral crusades, especially that of abolishing slavery. The Seneca Falls meeting was, in fact, directly rooted in other meetings, especially the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London.
There were other moral and intellectual roots. More than 200 years before Seneca Falls, a woman named Anne Hutchinson defied the dominant leadership and exercised her right to free speech. In 1637, the theocrats who ran the newly founded colony of Massachusetts tried and convicted Hutchinson of sedition because her religious ideas did not agree with theirs. Her brand of feminine spirituality was proving more popular than their harsh theology, and, when prominent young men exhibited their respect for this female leadership, Hutchinson was banished. At age 46, heavily pregnant for the twelfth time, she accepted exile rather than surrender her independent ideas. It literally cost her life; a few years later, Hutchinson and most of her children were killed by Algonquins in the
