Beech Tree News Network

Women’s Equality Day is August 26. This year is the 96th anniversary of American women winning the right to vote. The 19th Amendment to the Constitution declared that women, like men, deserved all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. As a woman, I am thankful for that right.

Wikipedia describes Women's Equality Day as “a day proclaimed each year by the United States President to commemorate the granting of the vote to women throughout the country. Women in the United States were granted the right to vote on August 26, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified as law. The amendment was first introduced many years earlier in 1878. Every president has published a proclamation for Women's Equality Day since 1972, the year after legislation was first introduced in Congress by Bella Abzug. This resolution was passed in 1971 designating August 26 of each year as Women's Equality Day” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Equality_Day).

Many have stated their beliefs about voting. Some of these quotes are listed below (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/voting.html):
•    Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting. --Franklin D. Roosevelt
•    Voting is a Constitutional right. Absent any evidence of fraud, all Americans have a protected right to vote, be they rich or poor, black, Hispanic or white, people who live in a big city or in remote rural area. --Juan Williams
•    I believe that voting is the first act of building a community as well as building a country. --John Ensign
•    I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant. --John F. Kennedy
•    Voting is a right best exercised by people who have taken time to learn about the issues. --Tony Snow
•    If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children. --Coretta Scott King
•    I support the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. --Rand Paul

As a child, I was taught by example that voting was important. During the earliest presidential election I can remember, I overheard my maternal grandparents discuss going to vote. My grandmother planned to vote, but my grandfather was unable to go at that time. He said he would go later. As she was leaving the room, my grandfather chuckled and said he would have to go “to cancel her vote.” One of my grandparents was a Democrat and the other a Republican. Even though elections provided a bit of humor in their home, voting was considered an important responsibility.

Women’s Equality Day is a reminder that the right to vote has not always been gender neutral. And as Larry Sabato said, “Every election is determined by the people who show up” (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/voting). Thankfully, voting in the United States no longer depends upon one’s wealth, one’s race or ethnicity, or one’s gender.