Which constitutional amendment granted women in the United States the right to vote nationwide?

The Nineteenth Amendment granted women in the United States the constitutional right to vote nationwide.

Congress approved the amendment in 1919, and Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify it on August 18, 1920. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920, making that date a landmark in the American women’s suffrage movement.

The amendment states that voting rights cannot be denied by the United States or any state on the basis of sex. Its adoption followed decades of organizing, petitioning, public speaking, marches, legal challenges, and civil disobedience by suffrage activists. Leaders included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells, Alice Paul, and Carrie Chapman Catt.

The amendment did not eliminate every barrier to voting. Many women of color, especially Black women in the South, continued to face poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and discriminatory administration until later civil-rights legislation. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, addressed race-based voting restrictions for male citizens but did not guarantee women’s suffrage.