Celebrating the Centennial

August 26, 2020 • 11 a.m. ET

“Determined to Rise” : Woman Suffrage: The West Came First, presented in collaboration with Michigan Women Forward (Lansing, Mich.) 

The earliest suffrage victories were in the west. The territory of Wyoming granted women the vote in 1869, the same year as the founding of the two national suffrage organizations. When Wyoming became a state in 1890, the new government continued to allow women to vote. Three years later, Colorado became the next woman suffrage state. Utah and Idaho followed in 1896. Suffragists from all over the country traveled to states considering new suffrage laws to advocate for their cause and, in turn, informed the woman suffrage debates that were occurring in the east.

August 26, 2020 • 4 p.m. ET

“Determined to Rise”: Chicago’s African American Women in the Fight for the Vote, presented in collaboration with the Newberry Library (Chicago, Ill.)

The conditions for African Americans in the 1890s were very challenging. Following the abolition of slavery in 1865, a prosperous period for the new emancipated slaves started during which African Americans acquired new civil rights, notably the right for Black men to vote. However, in the increasingly racist society of late 19th-century America, womanhood failed to emerge as a universal category. Although instances of interracial collaboration existed within the women’s rights movement, the club movement—so integral to African American women’s activism at the time—was not an integrated experience since African American women were officially excluded from white women’s clubs. Inherently, the position of Black women within the women’s rights movement involved far more complex issues of sexism, racism, and class bias. This important discussion explored African American women’s activism in the suffrage cause and the importance of the club movement in their mobilization.

August 26, 2020 • 9 p.m. ET
Women Take the Stage Concert and Rally
The National Women's History Museum is pleased to partner with top musicians, changemakers, and activist icons for Women Take the Stage: a free, livestreamed multi-ethnic concert and rally to increase votes by and for women before the November election. Join Gloria Steinem, Dolores Huerta, Alicia Garza, Vanessa Williams, Idina Menzel, Lily Tomlin, Billie Jean King, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Indigo Girls, BETTY, Dance Brigade, Pura Fé, DGLS, B-52s’ Kate Pierson, poet Staceyann Chin, founder of The Representation Project Jennifer Siebel Newsom, HBCU president Ruth Simmons, 3rd CTO of the U.S. /shift7 CEO Megan Smith, Time’s Up CEO Tina Tchen, ERA Coalition CEO Carol Jenkins, National LGBTQ Task Force’s Kierra Johnson, Native Action’s Gail Small, disability activist Mia Ives-Rublee, trailblazing transgender politician Andrea Jenkins, and N.Y.'s groundbreaking Attorney General, Letitia James.