19th Amendment Approved by Congress
Suffrage legislation had come before Congress numerous times since its initial introduction in 1878. Suffragists had been agitating for change through parades and picketing since 1913, when Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organized a parade at the White House that led to riots. Disagreements between how best to achieve suffrage led to the creation of the National Women’s Party (NWP), which broke away from the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA). NAWSA wished to achieve suffrage through lobbying politicians and working with state governments. NWP preferred more direct action and continued picketing and marching, often enduring extreme punishment, including workhouse sentences.
NAWSA argued that women’s participation in the First World War effort had proven their patriotism and their right to suffrage. This argument finally won over President Woodrow Wilson in 1918, who was previously anti-suffrage. Despite Wilson’s appeal to Congress to pass the suffrage amendment, it took five votes and a special Congressional session before passing. The Nineteenth Amendment reads, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."
Despite the suffrage movement's links to slavery opposition, many suffrage organizations overlooked women who were not white. Many Black women and other women of color remained disenfranchised and unable to exercise their right to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
