The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, giving women a constitutional voting-rights guarantee nationwide.
The amendment states that the right to vote cannot be denied by the United States or a state on the basis of sex. Congress passed it in 1919, and Tennessee became the decisive 36th state to ratify it in 1920. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment on August 26.
The amendment resulted from decades of organizing by suffragists, including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Alice Paul. The movement used petitions, marches, lobbying, civil disobedience, and state-by-state campaigns.
Ratification did not eliminate voting discrimination. Many Black women and other women of color still faced poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and discriminatory administration. Later civil-rights laws, especially the Voting Rights Act of 1965, were essential to enforcing voting access more broadly.