NARRATOR: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident that all men, and women, are created equal."
No, that's not the Declaration of Independence.
It's actually from the Declaration of Sentiments,
a document signed at the first ever Women's Rights Convention
in 1848.
Back then, women in the US weren't allowed to do a lot
of things men were, like vote.
And it would take them another 70 years to be
granted that fundamental right.
Why?
Well, many thought encouraging women's involvement in politics
would undermine society.
The prospect of women voting was threatening to the white men
who held power.
In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
decided to organize factions across the country
that were campaigning for suffrage or the right to vote.
The convention at Seneca Falls, New York
addressed women's rights and inspired
other conventions and meetings.
Stanton considered it the beginning
of the women's rights movement.
After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment
was introduced, which would give black men,
but not women of any color, the right to vote.
Suffragists were split.
Stanton and Susan B. Anthony opposed the amendment,
objecting to the exclusion of women.
They formed the National Women's Suffrage Association,
hoping to pass a constitutional amendment that included women.
Others, like abolitionists Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell
supported the 15th Amendment.
They founded the American Women's Suffrage Association
and lobbied for the women's right to vote on a state level
instead of through a national amendment.
The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870.
Black men could vote, but women still couldn't.
In 1878, a women's suffrage amendment
penned by Susan B. Anthony was finally proposed in Congress.
But it was defeated on the Senate floor in 1887.
In 1890, the separate suffrage movements
merged, opting to tackle suffrage
by state in the wake of the federal Amendment's defeat.
Within six years, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho granted
women the right to vote.
Wyoming had already done it in 1869.
Around the same time, the National Association
of Colored Women was formed, bringing together more than 100
black women's clubs.
It included leaders Mary Church Terrell, Josephine Silone
Yates, and Anna Julia Cooper.
By the turn of the 20th century, the women's suffrage movement
had gained renewed momentum.
Parades, marches, and pickets drew
great attention to the cause.
Between 1910 and 1918, a number of states and territories
expanded voting rights to women.
In 1912, 15,000 suffrage supporters took to the streets
of New York City.
But as women's political power grew,
so did the danger they faced.
In 1913, on the eve of President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration,
hundreds of women were injured in a massive suffrage
parade in the nation's capital.
In November of 1917, 33 suffragists were arrested
outside the White House.
The women were clubbed, beaten, and tortured by prison guards
at the Occoquan Workhouse.
One of the movement's leaders, Alice Paul,
founder of what became the National Woman's Party,
was placed in solitary confinement
in order to break her will and undermine her credibility.
But press coverage of the women's treatment
increased sympathy for their plight.
And in 1918, Representative Jeannette Rankin,
the first woman in Congress, opened congressional debate on
a woman's suffrage amendment.
The resolution failed.
In 1918,
President Wilson also came out in favor of suffrage,
declaring it was needed as a war measure.
Wilson argued that women had been providing vital roles
during World War I and that their votes
should be counted in order to make
the world safe for democracy.
Finally, in 1919, the Federal Women's Suffrage Amendment,
the same one written by Susan B. Anthony back in 1878,
was passed by the House and the Senate.
And on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment
was officially incorporated into the US Constitution,
prohibiting denying the vote to a US citizen based on gender,
although states could still deny voting
rights based on other things.
It would take another four years for Native American women
and men to get the right to vote and more than 30 years
before major restrictions were lifted on Asian-American voting
rights.