Women's Equality Day - August 26

It's been an emotional day beginning with the news of Sen. Ted Kennedy's death. I was watching the news as I was getting ready to attend a funeral for the mother of a close friend.

My friend's mother died a few days ago, and the kicker to this is that her father had died the week before. Her father was 95 and mother 86, so they had lived a full life, but it's still tough to let go.

As I approached my friend a noted that her mother was being buried on Women's Equality Day. My friend's mother was born about two years after women were granted the right to vote. As I sat in the pew at the church waiting for the funeral to begin I thought about my own mother, who was two years old when the amendment became law.

Before the day gets away from me I want to get something up about this history event -- so I've decided to "borrow" a post from Tennessee Guerilla Women:

Women’s Equality Day

Thanks to Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY) and the women known as second-wave feminists, today is Women's Equality Day. In 1971, the U.S. Congress designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day.

Joint Resolution of Congress, 1971
Designating August 26 of each year as Women’s Equality Day

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled the full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have united to assure that these rights and privileges are available to all citizens equally regardless of sex; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have designated August 26, the anniversary date of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, as symbol of the continued fight for equal rights: and

WHEREAS, the women of United States are to be commended and supported in their organizations and activities,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that August 26th of each year is designated as Women’s Equality Day, and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote, and that day in 1970, on which a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights took place.