FROM THE VAULT 1984: Mississippi ratifies the 19th Amendment

Talk about dragging your feet, TODAY is the 90th anniversary (August 26, 1920) of the certification of the 19th Amendment allowing women their right to vote.  But some men just refused to give in.  Mississippi legislators would have to slip in the 19th Amendment 64 years later under cover of night when no one was looking.

“bury [19th Amendment] beyond resurrection;” [women should remain] “queen of the home and hearthstone.” “I am absolutely, inherently, fundamentally, first, last, and all the time opposed to woman suffrage.” – Joe Owen of Union, Mississippi 1914.

“The Clarion-Ledger congratulated them, stating that “the vile old thing (the Susan B. Anthony Amendment) is as dead as its author.” – Mississippi Women and the Woman Suffrage Amendment

Mississippi’s Ratification of the 19th Amendment came only after debating the Equal Rights Amendment in the 70s.  Some felt it was an embarrassment that Mississippi had never passed it – so “on March 22, 1984, the Mississippi Legislature — on a day when few legislators were even listening and with no opposition — finally ratified the Nineteenth Amendment” – source: Marjorie Julian Spruill, Ph.D., is associate vice chancellor for institutional planning and research professor of history at Vanderbilt University

What other states took their time:

Maryland – March 29, 1941
Virginia – February 21, 1952
Alabama – September 8, 1953
Florida – July 1, 1969, not certified until August 22, 1973
Georgia – February 20, 1970
Louisiana – June 11, 1970
North Carolina – May 6, 1971
Mississippi – March 22, 1984

source: Wikipedia

This region looks awfully familiar.

Share

UA-154659673-1