On Tuesday evening, the League of Women Voters of Martha’s Vineyard gathered at Five Corners in Vineyard Haven to celebrate the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Around 25 members congregated at the busy intersection, dressed in all white with purple and yellow sashes and sunflowers — the colors and symbols of the suffragist movement. The women cheered, waved, and held up their demonstration signs as honking cars passed through.
The league had originally planned to hold events celebrating the centennial throughout the year, but had to reimagine their commemoration amid the coronavirus pandemic. They decided to gather on August 18, the 100-year anniversary of when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, giving it the needed two-thirds majority.
While a celebration of the momentous 19th Amendment, the demonstration also aimed to encourage voter participation in the upcoming Massachusetts primary for U.S. Senate on Sept. 1 and the presidential election, Nov. 3.
“We’re bringing attention to the centennial, but also encouraging people to vote,” said Deborah Medders, who’s been a member of the League of Women Voters of Martha’s Vineyard for more than 30 years. “It’s an opportunity to get people interested and engaged.”
The event, coincidentally held in front of the Vineyard Haven Post Office, also underscored the need to protect voting rights. “This is not just a historic thing, it’s ongoing,” said Susanna Sturgis of West Tisbury. “The battle is not over.”
The LWV of Martha’s Vineyard also highlighted the racial disparity in voting rights for women at Tuesday’s event, with many demonstration signs including the later dates that various minority women won the right to vote. The 19th Amendment was both a culmination and a beginning, Sturgis noted, as many women of color were not granted the right to vote until decades after its ratification.
“We are devoting time during this CCentennial to correct the impressions that history may have given us — that all women got the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920,” Medders wrote in an email.
In addition to Tuesday’s demonstration, the league is hosting an event at Cannonball Park in Edgartown at 4 pm on Saturday and an event at Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs at 10 am Wednesday, August 26, which marks the 100-year anniversary of when the 19th Amendment was certified and officially became law.
