On what date was the Nineteenth Amendment ratified?

The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. It prohibited the United States and its states from denying the vote on the basis of sex.

Congress approved the amendment in June 1919 after decades of organizing by women’s rights activists. The amendment required ratification by three-fourths of the states. Tennessee became the decisive thirty-sixth state when its legislature ratified the measure by a narrow vote.

The amendment was formally certified on August 26, 1920, which is why August 26 is commemorated in the United States as Women’s Equality Day. Ratification and certification are different milestones: Tennessee supplied the final approval on August 18, while federal officials later certified the amendment.

The amendment did not immediately guarantee voting access to every woman. Many women of color continued to face discriminatory state laws, intimidation, poll taxes, literacy tests, and other barriers. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 later attacked several of those practices. The Nineteenth Amendment remains a landmark in the expansion of American voting rights.