The United States ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on August 18, 1920.
Tennessee became the thirty-sixth state to ratify the amendment, providing the three-fourths majority required for constitutional amendments at that time. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified it on August 26, 1920, which is why the two dates are often confused.
The amendment states that the right of citizens to vote cannot be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex. It was the result of decades of organizing by suffragists, including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Ida B. Wells.
The amendment did not immediately guarantee equal access to voting for every woman. Racial discrimination, poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, citizenship restrictions, and other barriers continued to exclude many women, especially women of color. Later civil-rights laws helped challenge those obstacles.