Amendment giving women the right to vote. The womens Suffrage Centennial commission hosted this conversation. Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome. My name is dr. Colleen show gun and im the vice chair of the womens Suffrage Centennial commission. On behalf of the commission and twitter. Were thrilled to bring you womens fight for the vote, celebrating 100 years of the 19th amendment, conversation with elaine weiss and Hillary Rodham clinton moderated by dr. Carla hayden. This is the 100 Year Anniversary of the 19th amendment and the womens right to vote. And in honor of this milestone of american democracy, congress has officially designated august as National Womens suffrage month. The Centennial Commission is coordinating suffrage month on behalf of the congress and the American People and if this history interests you, please visit the commission at womens vote 100. Org to learn more and engage. But for now lets enjoy this conversation between the three brilliant women as we celebrate the sentenial of womens suffrage and pay tribute to the legacy of the trail blazing suff suffragists who paved the way for our right to vote. Hello. Colleen, thank you for that thoughtful introduction. Im carla hayden and i join you from the library suffrage exhibit shall not be denied. Welcome to womens fight for the vote. Celebrating 100 years of the 19th amendment. A conversation with historian elaine weiss and former secretary of state Hillary Rodham clinton. What ajoy it is to be here today with these two women discussing the history in a sentenial year. I would like to start with brief introductions. Elaine weiss was joining me today for this conversation at the library of congress, is an Award Winning journalist and writer and historian. As well as the author of the womans hour, the great fight to win the vote. Which tells the story of tennessees role as the 36th and final state to ratify the 19th amendment. And it is also just been put out into a Young Readers edition. Also joining us today is secretary Hillary Rodham clinton. Secretary clinton has a long career in Public Service and i have her 1996 book it takes a village that makes sure we all consider young people. She was also making history in 2016 as the first woman to earn a major Party Nomination for president. Shes long been a champion of womens suffrage history and working with elaine as an executive producer on the Television Adaptation of the womens hour. So secretary clinton and elaine, lets get started. So to start us off, this is a question for both of you. Womens fight for the vote was the longest political and social movement in American History, so why isnt the story of womens suffrage more widely taught or known . Secretary clinton. Thanks so much, carla. Im delighted to be here with you and elaine to talk about this. I think your question really goes to the heart of one of the challenges that we have faced which is suffrage history was considered at best an addon to real American History. It was not given the respect and the academy. It was not the subject of curriculum development. I remember very little in my Public School years of learning about anything having to do with the Suffrage Movement other than eventually women were given, as they would say, the right to vote. So i think that this 100th anniversary, what youve done with the exhibit at the library, the commissions work, obviously great scholarship like elaines book is filling a vacuum because we did not know enough about the history and how it links with the continuing struggle in america to form a more Perfect Union and try, despite all of the setbacks and obstacles, to keep moving toward true equality for everyone. And elaine, was it difficult with the research because, as the secretary said, it wasnt part of i know it certainly wasnt part of my experience in school at all. Thats absolutely true. Its not been taught very deeply in our curriculum, but theres always been wonderful scholarship and it just hasnt filtered down which was why i decided to write the book. Theres wonderful scholarship and of course theres wonderful primary documents. Theres the collection in the library of congress, for me in the Tennessee State archives at the sussen jer library. Theres wonderful, rich documentation of this movement and yet it hasnt filtered down to public awareness, so that was one of the things i wanted to do. I wanted to take those primary documents that tell the story so richly and the scholarly work thats been done and synthesize that and tell a story that would intrigue a modern reader, and it has so many of the themes that were still grappling with today. So im very hopeful that Going Forward in this year there have been wonderful new suffrage books. My book is surrounded by wonderful new editions that tell the story from different angles, and i think thats one of the special things about the centennial, is that it is fostering this interest both in scholarship and in Popular Culture of looking at this Important Movement and learning the lessons it can teach us. Secretary clinton, you served as first lady, as senator, secretary of state, and the womens Suffrage Movement, did it have anything in terms of informing your journey, wearing what you wore . That was duly noted. Yes, indeed, carla. When you come to grips with how hard it was for women to first get included in the constitution to be able to vote and then how much more difficult it was to enforce that right, especially for black women, native american women who were left out because of the way that the amendment was ignored and how it was part of the continuing efforts in many places in our country to deny black people and other minorities the right to vote. So i really see what elaine just said as an important point. What happened 100 years ago is still relevant today. I certainly, as first lady, as senator, secretary of state and as the democratic nominee in 2016, thought often about how the women who started the Suffrage Movement, you know, women like sojourny truth, katie stanton, susan b. Anthony, these women did not live to see the result of all their labor, and sometimes you have to understand youre in the relay race of history. Youre handing off the baton that you have taken from someone else, and i think theres an enormous amount of energy right now at this moment in our history to right wrongs, to bring about a reckoning with racism, sexism, a lot of the challenges that unfortunately we still live with, and that was certainly very present in my mind during the last years and the early suffragists encouraged and inspired me. Did you feel that as you stood there, you knew you were carrying on a legacy . I did, very much, carla. I felt like, you know, it had been a long time until we got the vote. It had been a really long time since the two Major Political parties had even considered a woman, the Vice President ial ticket and then obviously being nominated, i felt like i was standing in that great river of history. I felt so privileged and honored to play that role, to be there at that moment to try to link our past, present and future. Thats why i get so much encouragement and truly im optimistic about this time because young people seem so energized and so committed to trying to do better and to really create more opportunity to bring everyone in to the american experiment. So i was incredibly conscious of it and remain so today because the work continues. It is by no means done. Thats why, elaine, your book for Young Readers, making that available to the 10, 11yearolds, and whats so powerful is that youve given them the history, you show them, and then you give them a call to action. A 10yearold can pick up your book and you tell them what . Because activism isnt just a particular time in your life. I think i wanted to show through the story of this decadeslong movement which took on its own momentum through three generations of women and then of course had to go on for another 40 years for black women and almost as long for asian women and native american women. I wanted to show that sometimes these seeds are planted very young so i tell the story of several leading suffragists who really become conscious of injustice when theyre children, when theyre young girls, and they see their mothers not able to vote or they see their fathers who are judges cannot protect women because the laws are written in such a way that they have very few legal rights in the 19th century. So i wanted to show that the passion for social justice, for any number of passions that young people can recognize because they have a very keen sense of what is just and what is not, i think its really important to realize that you can feel that and then gather the tools and the knowledge as an adult or even as a very young adult begin to bring that passion into the world and begin create change. The Suffrage Movement involved protests and demonstration and also a very sophisticated political strategy. I think thats important that young people realize that its going to take all of that. Youre going to bring that powerful story, elaine, and secretary, to the screen and a Television Series by Steven Spielbergs production company. Secretary, youre the executive producer. So elaine, i have to ask you this, what did you feel as an author when you got that call . Well, it was the sort of dream of a lifetime kind of moment, a very special moment. Of course for me it was the idea that Hillary Clinton had read my book. I think that was the most powerful part of it. And then how deeply she understood the power of the story and wanting to make this story available to the largest audience. We agreed we need to tell this story because its meaningful not just in our history but for how we go forward and how we learn from this experience of having to fight for half of the nation to get the vote. And so the idea of partnering together on this has been one of the most spectacular experiences, and were working hard to adapt this into something that young people will be interested in watching. I think its been a great wonderful roller coaster experience for both of us. We are not familiar with the ways of hollywood, and were learning. Would you agree . I would agree 100 . Carla, i had never done that before. Ive read a lot of books that inspired me and ive written letters to authors to thank them for bringing the book alive, but i finished elaines book the womans hour and i just was stunned by, number one, the beauty of her writing and storytelling and what a compelling, dramatic story it was, that final effort in tennessee to get the final state needed to ratify the amendment. And i have to confess, you know, i vaguely knew that tennessee was the last state and i had come across the ending of the story where the young legislator changes his vote because of a note he gets from his mother, but i had no idea the real sweep of this historic moment in American History. So i did call her and i said youve got to bring this to a larger audience. Youve got to make sure especially that young people and particularly young women understand this was hanging by a powerful interests, the railroad companies, the alcohol industry, you know, a lot of the sort of attitudes about womens place being in the home, the women who were against it, theres so much of this that is still swirling around in our politics. So i was thrilled when spielberg and his team said they were interested, and as elaine said, its a challenge, you know, and its made more so because of the pandemic of taking a historical work like the womans hour which has so much drama already but making it accessible to this generation. So im really in awe of elaines patience. She has been a great guide for the hollywood interest in understanding the significance of this story. And part of that drama and i as a woman of color and i have to just give this quote. When the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture opened, in the dedication president george w. Bush said a great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and correct them. And that story of race and prejudice in the Suffrage Movement is very compelling. Secretary clinton, can you share your thoughts on that, because you mentioned earlier that its the good and the bad in this movement. I think we are coming to understand that every human being has strengths and weaknesses, has real moments of greatness and and, sad ly, moments of departure from that. Flaws go with the process of being a human being, especially one on the public stage. So we take very seriously the challenges that were within the Suffrage Movement, and starting after the civil war because originally, carla, as you know so well, suffrage and abolition were kind of married together. The grimky sisters were preaching for abolition of slavery but also speaking on behalf of womens rights. Sojourner truth, a great example of that, susan b. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie stanton and so many of the pioneers coming out of the seneca falls deck claire ra ation of sentiments in 1848, they were joined by Frederick Douglass and there was a real marriage of effort, belief, conviction and commitment between the abolitionists and the Suffrage Movement. After the civil war when the constitution was amended, to give black men the right to vote, that began a rupture between the two movements and i have tried to understand it from the perspective of everyone involv involved, and i do understand some of the challenges that i think both black and white women tried to deal with and they were sometimes successful in coming together and recommitting themselves to the struggle but even up to the very end when the pressure was on congress and Woodrow Wilson to actually pass the amendment, you see the calculations of an alice paul or a Carrie Chapman kad, ida b. Wells, two white suffragists and black suffragists trying to figure out how do we deal with both sexists and race. How do we deal with the prejudices that affect both women and black people, and particularly black women. Its a very important part of the story of suffrage and its a very important lesson to, i think, people in the present, certainly young people Going Forward. You cant sacrifice any part of your value system. You have to stay firm. You are against racism and you are against sexism. You want to move everybody forward, and id love to hear elaine talk about that because she captures the tension in the womans hour and how black suffragists in tennessee joined forces in a very realistic and pragmatic way with the white suffragists but they also knew that their full rights were not being recognized at that time. Elaine, you captured it. Well, absolutely. We see this happen all the time. Were seeing it today where the powers that be pickt two disenfranchised groups against one another and say only one of you can come through. Only one of you can be enfranchised. Only one of you are going to get the legislation that you need to protect yourself, and we see this happen over and over again in the Suffrage Movement. Again, learning the lessons of what went wrong, of the attitudes that hindered the idea of universal suffrage of all citizens having the right to vote, i think its as important of telling the story of what in which ways the suffragists succeeded. And i try to do that and i also do bring up this alliance that happened in nashville of black suffragists and white suffragists working together for ratification because black women were working in every city in every town in america, understanding how important the vote was and understanding that in the south the jim crow laws were going to impede their ability to exercise the 19th amendment and the great disappointment is that the suffragists do not insist that the 19th amendment be enforced and congress refuses to enforce it Going Forward after 1920. Its left to the jim crow laws propagated by racist legislators in the southern states, and so this idea that you can have constitutional law but if its not enforced, if the public will isnt Strong Enough to force politicians to follow through on it, then legislation, even constitutional amendments are not as meaningful or as powerful as they should be. And so thats a really important lesson for today and its also a lesson that leaving aside your colleagues, your sisters who you know are going to have trouble exercising this right you have just acquired, you have just fought for and won in the 19th amendment is going to weaken american democracy because youre not taking that next vital step, and thats an important thing for us to remember today as we are in the congress, in our slate legislatures and even in our city municipal government bodies, trying to right some wrongs, trying to make a more equal and a more Perfect Union. We have to remember that as secretary clinton put so well you cant leave your ideals behind for political expediency. That said, there are forces that are going to try to make you make those moral compromises, and standing up to that is very important but very difficult. Secretary, the way elaine just put it, theres hope in looking at history, was probably something that made y