The photos of suffragists marching in their white gowns suggest a movement calm and elegant and a cause self-evident and benign.
We often recall the quaint anecdote of Tennessee state Rep. Harry Burn’s vote clinching ratification of the 19th Amendment. He heeded his mother’s letter telling him to be a “good boy” and give women the right to vote.
This milestone 100th anniversary year — during a time of national trial — better to remember that this revolution was neither polite, peaceful, nor a foregone conclusion. Women fought decades to wrest for themselves the promises implicit in the nation’s founding documents. They endured derision and beatings, even arrest and imprisonment, to be recognized as fully human and have a say in the government that controlled the parameters of their lives.
Even with the ratification of the 19th Amendment on Aug. 18, 1920, justice remained out of reach for the Black women who pushed for suffrage, yet had to wait long decades to gain access to the ballot box.
The 19th Amendment helped unleash the enormous latent potential of women who changed the nation for the better. The good that comes from removing barriers to human talent reminds us that our rights must be defended, not surrendered. Consider the context.
Last week’s celebrations of the 19th Amendment came with the release of a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report that expanded on the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian 2016 election interference.
As summarized by The New York Times, the findings should rouse all Americans: “The report is an exhaustive look at the various ways that the Kremlin’s intelligence services exploited ties to the Trump campaign to help carry out a stealth attack on American democracy.”
That attack on our elections from a hostile foreign power continues, as intelligence experts repeatedly warn.
The commemoration of voting rights also arrives amid a mass awakening to systemic racism, reminding us the quest for equal justice, which can be waged at the ballot box, remains urgent and incomplete.
And as we honor women’s enfranchisement, our president relentlessly seeks to undermine confidence in the vote without evidence.
The pandemic, division and distraction conspire to imperil our elections at a time when Americans most urgently need to take control of the country’s direction and priorities.
Ample cause exists to despair and detach. But democracy is not immutable. Its health and effectiveness rely on the participation of the governed.
Without the vote, the suffragists, civil rights activists and more knew citizens have no voice in matters of intimate importance, such as work, family and education.
Whatever your priorities, be an American and put them into action with your vote, a right so many sacrificed to establish and defend.
— Erie Times-News
