Which U.S. constitutional amendment recognized women’s right to vote nationwide?

The Nineteenth Amendment recognized women’s right to vote nationwide in the United States.

Congress approved the amendment in 1919, and Tennessee became the thirty-sixth state to ratify it on August 18, 1920. That ratification supplied the three-fourths majority then required for an amendment to become part of the Constitution.

Its text prohibits the United States and the states from denying or abridging a citizen’s voting rights on account of sex. The amendment followed decades of organizing, petitions, conventions, lobbying, marches, and civil-disobedience campaigns by women’s suffrage activists.

The amendment did not instantly provide equal voting access to every woman. Many Black women in the South continued facing discriminatory barriers, while Native American women and other groups faced separate legal exclusions. The Nineteenth Amendment was a major constitutional milestone, but voting rights enforcement continued afterward.