The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified 90 years ago today, on Aug. 26, 1920, No longer was the voting booth for men only.
The battle had been long and hard. Women fought for the right to cast their votes — with at least one voice claiming that the female gender alone should determine elections.
In 1915, Alice Duer Miller argued that women should be the sole voters. Her case was made in a tract titled “Why We Don’t Want Men to Vote.” She argued that “no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.”
“Men are too emotional to vote,” she explained, adding: “Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them unfit for government.”
Wish I could argue, uh, I mean reason, against with her point stronger, I mean better.
A couple of years ago President Jimmy Carter was speaking to Mercer University students and asked: “What did the Nineteenth Amendment accomplish?” Hands went up throughout the room.
When called upon, a student on the front row responded: “It gave women the right to vote.”
President Carter replied: “That’s not correct. Anyone else?”
All hands went down and faces turned to confusion.
Then the Baptist Sunday school teacher from Plains, Ga., said: “It gave white women the right to vote.”
May this 90-year milestone remind us that most victories for equality are steps in the right direction rather than the end of Justice Road. Let us keep moving ahead.
Director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and former executive editor and publisher at Good Faith Media.