Existing comment:
The Nineteenth Amendment and Its Legacy
The history of American women's suffrage exposes deep social divisions along racial lines as well as a flawed and convoluted history of American governance. Although women of color were repeatedly ignored by white suffragists, they kept fighting for their own rights. Native American activists lobbied for decades for U.S. citizenship, which they finally received in 1924. Similarly, Puerto Rican women gained full suffrage in 1935. African Americans and other people of color could not vote unimpeded until 1965. Even today, restrictive voter identification laws target African American and Native American citizens in specific regions. Yet as the 2016 Presidential election and the 2017 United States Senate special election in Alabama have demonstrated, the collective vote of specific blocks of women has come to wield enormous influence in American governance. Moreover, women, who had no political voice one hundred years ago, now serve in the American government in historic numbers. Today, more than 120 women are serving in the 116th Congress. |