August 26 is designated Women’s Equality Day to commemorate the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted some women the right to vote.
The right to vote has always been hard fought. Even the 19th Amendment’s promise of equality failed to provide access to the ballot box for Black women, nor did it include nationwide suffrage for Native American, Asian American, or Hispanic women.
Ratification was a critical milestone, but it was not the end of the struggle for voting rights.
It took another 45 years for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to outlaw discriminatory voting practices and strengthen federal protections for voters.
But then, in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision gutted the pre-clearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, making it easier for certain states to reinstate discrimination.
And this year, the Supreme Court further weakened the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, limiting the ability of the law to protect Black voters from racial vote dilution.
The history of Women’s Equality Day reminds us that progress is never guaranteed. Every generation must be prepared to defend the rights that previous generations fought to secure.
NOW members also know that there can never be true equality without the Equal Rights Amendment explicitly enshrined in the U.S. Constitution to protect equal rights and protections under the law.
Women’s Equality Day is a powerful reminder of how long the road to equality and justice can be, and how much determination it takes to keep moving forward.
Today, that activism, energy, and commitment is needed more than ever. Women face the greatest threats to equality we’ve ever witnessed. On the campaign trail in 2024, Donald Trump vowed that “whether women like it or not, I’m going to protect them.”
Women don’t need to be protected from equality. We need our freedom, our rights, and our equality protected.
We’ve seen this play out before: Progress followed by backlash. Rights won, then threatened. Equality promised, then delayed.
But we also know what happens when women organize, persist, and resist going backward.
On Women’s Equality Day 2026, NOW members are working harder than ever to deliver on the promise of equality — not someday, but now — and to stop those who would take our hard-won rights away.
