The Nineteenth Amendment, granting U.S. women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920.
Tennessee became the thirty-sixth state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920, providing the three-fourths majority required by Article V of the Constitution. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment on August 26, which is now commemorated as Women’s Equality Day.
The amendment states that voting rights cannot be denied or abridged by the United States or a state on account of sex. Its ratification followed decades of organizing by suffragists, including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells, and Alice Paul.
The amendment was a major constitutional milestone, but it did not guarantee equal access to the ballot for every woman. Many Black women and other women of color continued to face discriminatory laws and intimidation, especially in the South. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 later attacked several of those barriers.