Women's Suffrage

SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN

It came down to a single vote in the Tennessee legislature on August 18, 1920.

Women's Equality Day became a true holiday in 1971.

For amendments to pass then, three-fourths of the 48 states at the time needed to ratify it within their own governments. Tennessee, which would've been the 36th state to pass it, was gridlocked.

Harry T. Burn, a 24-year-old state representative, had planned to vote against the amendment. But in his pocket, he kept a letter from his mother Febb, who'd asked him to "be a good boy" and vote for the amendment that would grant her the right to vote for legislators like her son, according to the National Constitution Center.

So he did. And with his "Aye," the 19th Amendment passed nationwide.

"I knew that a mother's advice is always safest for a boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification," he said, according to the National Constitution Center.

http://lite.cnn.io/en/article/h_e653f6bd610a0dc07fc35c09d4ffc4ca