The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution became law in 1920.
The amendment prohibited the United States and its states from denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of sex. Congress approved it on June 4, 1919, and Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify it on August 18, 1920, providing the three-fourths majority required at the time. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment on August 26.
The amendment was the result of decades of organizing by women’s suffrage activists, including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells, and Carrie Chapman Catt. The movement included conventions, petitions, lobbying, marches, and civil disobedience.
Ratification did not instantly remove every barrier to voting. Many women of color, especially Black women in the South, continued to face discriminatory laws and intimidation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 later strengthened federal protection against racial discrimination in voting. Thus, 1920 marks a major constitutional change, not the end of the struggle for equal voting access.