How Should We Celebrate 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage? Recognize the Equal Rights Amendment…

This article was originally published by Daily Journal. Reprinted with permission. 

On August 18, 2020—exactly one hundred years ago—the Nineteenth Amendment became part of our Constitution, effectively granting women the right to vote. This was the culmination of more than seven decades of advocacy. The women who fought for this moment were fierce, radical, and relentless. They carried their movement through the Civil War and onto the international stage of World War I. They pushed the envelope of advocacy, mounting the first protest ever at the doors of the White House and staging hunger strikes following their arrests. They were not “given” the vote; they seized it.

They also recognized the limits of their accomplishment. For Black suffragists, those limits were all too apparent. Often excluded from more visible roles in the suffrage movement, Black women faced the prospect of continued disenfranchisement, thanks to Jim Crow laws and other efforts to suppress the Black vote—some of which continue today.

For her part, Alice Paul recognized almost immediately that there was another step to take: to pass another constitutional amendment that would grant women equal rights under the laws and prohibit discrimination by the United States or any state on the basis of sex. Along with Crystal Eastman—another leader in the National Woman’s Party—she drafted the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment and saw it introduced in Congress for the first time in 1923. It would take another fifty years to muster enough support in Congress to pass it.

Winston & Strawn Partners Linda Coberly, Eva Davis, Joan Fife, and Amanda Groves co-authored a Daily Journal article titled “How Should We Celebrate 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage? Recognize the Equal Rights Amendment…,” which discusses the Equal Rights Amendment and the fight to make it part of the U.S. Constitution. 

Read the full article here.

Read more about Winston’s involvement with the ERA here.