Women’s right to vote was just the first step on a long journey toward true democracy

One hundred years ago last Wednesday, the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, became part of the U. S. Constitution when it was certified by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby. That is a truly historic landmark, worthy of all the celebrations that have been held during the past several weeks. The struggle for women’s suffrage took 72 years from the time of the 1848 Seneca Falls women’s rights convention.

But women’s suffrage, historic as it was, left a lot of people out. The first to come to mind is, of course, Black women, who were prevented from participating as equals in the suffrage movement and denied the right to vote by Jim Crow laws in the South.

It also left out the original citizens of this land, American Indians. They were not granted citizenship in the United States until 1924, because they were theoretically citizens of tribal nations, even though they lived mostly under the rule of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, a decidedly American government agency. (Indians could vote earlier only if they renounced their tribal membership.) And it wasn’t until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 that all states acknowledged Native Americans’ right to vote.

Immigration laws also prevented many from voting for many years. Chinese people started immigrating to this country in the 1850s, but in 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act stopped more from coming. Only when that Act was finally repealed in 1943 were Chinese finally allowed to become citizens and vote.

People from India and the Philippines were allowed to become citizens with voting rights in 1946; people from other Asian countries became eligible for citizenship in 1952.

In 1964, the 24th amendment to the Constitution specifically outlawed poll taxes in federal elections. And the following year, the Voting Rights Act was passed in Congress. Finally, African Americans were enfranchised.

In 1971, the voting age was changed from 21 to 18. This meant that people old enough to serve in the armed forces (and, at that time, to die in Vietnam) became eligible to vote.

These facts can be read as a litany of historic injustices, as they certainly are.

But even more powerfully, this same list of facts can and should be read as a testament to the American capacity for making genuine moral progress. It traces the dramatic expansion of voting rights that Americans fought for and won over the course of the 20th century.

Since then, there has been backsliding, most notably the 2013 Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act. A congressional fix to that lapse is long overdue. Until that happens, we will continue to fight states’ voter suppression measures, including partisan gerrymandering.

But the progress we’ve made since the days when only white, male property owners could vote should be precious to all of us. Our responsibility to protect and continue that progress should be a source of patriotic pride and purpose.

And most of all, it should remind us not to squander the right so clearly promised in our constitution and so slowly and painstakingly expanded during the past 232 years.

By itself, the right to vote is not a guarantee of justice for all, but it is the foundation on which we can stand together to advance the cause of justice. It is the right that binds us together as a nation. Each of us must work to protect it, to extend it to every citizen, and above all to exercise it wisely.