Leader's Moment of Decision Led to Women's Equality Day

Leaders make decisions every day, but some days are more significant than others. Those are the days on which we face moments of decision at the moral crossroads. One such crossroads was the reason we celebrate August 26 as Women's Equality Day.

Why August 26? It's the date that the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.

After 72 years of organized struggle, and almost 150 years after the American Revolution took place, female citizens of this country finally got the right to vote. But though this decision was clearly about women, it must be remembered that the women who led the suffrage movement had to persuade the virtually all male Congress and state legislatures to expand the franchise to include women.

Women have take many more giant steps along the road to equality since then, and in my opinion, thought we still have a distance to go, the path is for the most part open to us to be or do whatever we choose. It will be up to women to lead themselves through to full equality and parity in the workplace, in politics and civic leadership, and at home in personal relationships.

As we honor the women leaders like Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Carrie Chapman Catt who fought for women's right to vote, I want to share with you the story of a man whose leadership moment of decision (and his mother's persuasiveness) led him to cast the deciding vote in the final state needed to ratify women's suffrage:

When thirty-five of the necessary thirty-six states had ratified the amendment, the battle came to Nashville, Tennessee. Anti-suffrage and pro-suffrage forces from around the nation descended on the town. And on August 18, 1920, the final vote was scheduled.

One young legislator, 24 year old Harry Burn, had voted with the anti-suffrage forces to that time. But his mother had urged that he vote for the amendment and for suffrage. When he saw that the vote was very close, and with his anti-suffrage vote would be tied 48 to 48, he decided to vote as his mother had urged him: for the right of women to vote. And so on August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and deciding state to ratify.

Except that the anti-suffrage forces used parliamentary maneuvers to delay, trying to convert some of the pro-suffrage votes to their side. But eventually their tactics failed, and the governor sent the required notification of the ratification to Washington, D.C.

And so on August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution became law, and women could vote in the fall elections, including in the Presidential election that fall.