Dear John,
Today is Women’s Equality Day—the day on which we celebrate the formal adoption of the 19th amendment, which enshrined women’s right to vote into the U.S. Constitution in 1920. Historically, women have both registered and voted in every presidential election at higher rates than men since 1980.
Even after the 19th amendment, Black women remained disenfranchised for years until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and many continue to be denied the right to vote today, with voter suppression laws that target Black people and young people. But despite these years of disenfranchisement, Black women show up to the polls in even higher numbers—with turnout rates over 66 percent in 2020.
Our celebration of this day is, of course, tinged with irony—because women are still far from equal, both in terms of our lived experiences, and in terms of the literal letter of the law. Whether it’s the pay gap, or the elevated maternal mortality rates suffered by Black women, or the ongoing abortion access crisis, women in America suffer myriad inequalities on a daily basis—inequalities which can have lethal consequences.
But women aren’t giving up without a fight. These continued disparities emphasize the urgency of getting the Equal Rights Amendment included in the Constitution. The ERA states that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” You’d think that wouldn’t be a controversial statement, in the year 2023—but alas, the fight isn’t over yet.
Another important anniversary is also being celebrated this weekend: today, advocates will march on Washington to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for civil rights.
As we celebrate this historic anniversary, we’re looking to Black women historians—who are setting the record straight about the role women played in the March and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole.
“The public memorialization of the march, in many ways, has repeated the marginalization of women of 50 years ago, with little mention of Anna Arnold Hedgeman, Dorothy Height, Pauli Murray and Gloria Richardson—despite the important roles Black women played in the march’s organization and their attempts to challenge their marginalization at the event,” wrote Jeanne Theoharis in Ms. in 2018.
The legacy of this “Jane Crow” sexism—as activist and legal scholar Pauli Murray termed it—lives on today, in the continued sidelining of Black women in social movements, policy agendas, and elsewhere. An advocate for the ERA herself, Murray’s determination in the face of patriarchal pushback is a model we still look to, as we continue to face these challenges.
As we look back on the past fifty years of Ms. magazine, which we’re celebrating with the release of our book 50 YEARS OF Ms.: THE BEST OF THE PATHFINDING MAGAZINE THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION next month, we’re taking the determination of those who came before us, and preparing ourselves for the next fifty. We’re living in the midst of a terrifying backlash against women’s rights. If you’re not already a member, we hope you’ll mark this special day by joining Ms., and helping us ensure that feminist media endures and keeps spreading the ideas and creating the community that will carry us forward.
Onward,
