A seven-decade campaign — encompassing Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. Wells, Alice Paul, and tens of thousands of organizers — to win the vote for women. The 1848 Declaration of Sentiments, the post-Reconstruction split with abolitionists over the 15th Amendment, the 1913 Washington suffrage parade, the National Woman’s Party’s 1917 White House picketing (and the resulting “Night of Terror” at Occoquan Workhouse), and the final ratification of the 19th Amendment in Tennessee in August 1920 are its defining episodes. Black women’s access to the ballot was not effectively secured until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Why it’s been targeted

Texas state Rep. Matt Krause’s October 2021 list of 850 books for districts to “investigate” included multiple suffrage-history titles; Book Riot’s analysis confirms histories of women’s organizing were targeted alongside race-history titles. Florida’s 2022 Department of Education textbook specifications under HB 7 flagged “social justice” framings — language districts have applied to suffrage units that connect the 19th Amendment to ongoing voting-rights struggles. Howard Zinn’s A People’s History, the most-banned popular history, contains extensive suffrage coverage.