Daily Times

The United States marked the centennial of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote on Wednesday with celebrations of the “historic victory” as well as pleas by female politicians to honor the milestone by voting in November’s presidential election.

The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was formally certified on Aug. 26, 1920, after decades of struggle by suffragettes. It states, “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.”

The date is marked in the United States each year as Women’s Equality Day.

For the women’s suffrage movement, the amendment’s ratification was a realization of the Constitution’s first phrase, “We the People” – although it would take until 1965 for the rights of Black women and men to vote to be protected. In New York’s Central Park, a statue of three 19th century pioneers of women’s suffrage, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was unveiled, all of whom had died by the time women could vote.

“While the passage of the 19th Amendment was a critical, important, historic victory, it was also an incomplete one,” said former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at the unveiling.