» On Harris’ big night at convention, many women celebrated.
As America marked the centennial of the 19th Amendment, Wednesday night’s installment of the Democratic National Convention embraced the milestone for women’s suffrage, with nods to the movement’s complicated history — only white women won the vote at first — and tributes to women who had “broken the marble ceiling,” in the words of the first female speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
Sen. Kamala Harris, accepting the vice presidential nomination and becoming the first Black woman and the first Indian American woman named to a major party’s ticket, began by making note of the anniversary, lauding both the women who had fought and won, and those who fought but were themselves overlooked.
“So many of the Black women who helped secure that victory were still prohibited from voting long after its ratification,” Harris said. “But they were undeterred. Without fanfare or recognition, they organized and testified and rallied and marched and fought not just for their vote but for a seat at the table. These women and the generations that followed worked to make democracy and opportunity real in the lives of all of us who followed.”
The speakers who appeared before Harris on Wednesday sounded similar notes.
“One hundred years ago yesterday, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. “It took seven decades of marching and picketing and going to jail to push us closer to a more perfect union.”
Clinton — like Pelosi, who spoke after her — wore white, a symbol for American suffragists.
Still, at this week’s kickoff meeting of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, one of those women, Rep. Katie Porter of California, joked that there were still more women found in a Nordstrom shoe department than in Congress.
“Why shouldn’t we be at the table?” Pelosi said at that meeting. “Why shouldn’t we be at the head of the table?”
Before Clinton spoke from her home in Westchester County, the convention featured a video montage of women voting, protesting and testifying before Congress over the years.
It included black-and-white images from 1920 and images from 2017, after President Donald Trump had taken office and women marched in protest wearing vividly pink, knitted caps.
In clips stitched into the montage,
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke before members of the Senate; Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington reclaimed her speaking time from Attorney General William Barr at a hearing; Clinton herself, eight years before she became the first woman nominated for president by a major party, spoke of failing to shatter “that highest, hardest glass ceiling” but putting “about 18 million cracks in it.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the first woman elected to the Senate from Massachusetts, warned that “you don’t get what you don’t fight for.” And Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia, put it simply: “This is our time,” she declared.
Some speakers, though, offered an appeal that transcended race and gender.
Some happened to be women, like Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, but her message was for all citizens, men and women.
“Vote, vote, vote,” Giffords urged.