95-20748. Women's Equality Day, 1995  

  • [Federal Register Volume 60, Number 160 (Friday, August 18, 1995)]
    [Presidential Documents]
    [Pages 43345-43346]
    From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
    [FR Doc No: 95-20748]
    
    
    
    
    [[Page 43343]]
    
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    Part IX
    
    
    
    
    
    The President
    
    
    
    
    
    _______________________________________________________________________
    
    
    
     Proclamation 6816--Women's Equality Day, 1995
    
    
                            Presidential Documents 
    
    
    
    Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 160 / Friday, August 18, 1995 / 
    Presidential Documents
    
    ___________________________________________________________________
    
    Title 3--
    The President 
    
    [[Page 43345]]
    
                    Proclamation 6816 of August 16, 1995
    
                    
    Women's Equality Day, 1995
    
                    By the President of the United States of America
    
                    A Proclamation
    
                    Seventy-five years ago this Nation took a great step 
                    forward by ratifying the 19th Amendment to the 
                    Constitution. Twenty-eight simple words--``The right of 
                    citizens of the United States to vote shall not be 
                    denied or abridged by the United States or by any State 
                    on account of sex''--brought to a triumphant conclusion 
                    the long decades of struggle waged by generations of 
                    suffragists. Looking back from the vantage point of the 
                    present, when the contributions and influence of women 
                    enrich every facet of our national life, it seems 
                    remarkable that as recently as 1920 most American women 
                    were still denied their right to full participation in 
                    the political activity of this country. Our history 
                    continues to remind us that humanity's age-old enemies 
                    of ignorance and prejudice are not easily defeated.
    
                    But defeated they were, by an army of women and men 
                    who, inspired by the staunch courage and unswerving 
                    commitment of leaders like Susan B. Anthony, changed 
                    people's minds and the course of U.S. history. Using 
                    the classic tools of democracy--assembly and petition, 
                    exhortation and example, peaceful protest and political 
                    shrewdness--these champions of liberty won a lasting 
                    victory for civil rights. The fight was hard, the 
                    margins slim, and the outcome often in doubt. But after 
                    years of effort and sacrifice, after countless acts of 
                    courage and conscience, advocates of women's suffrage 
                    rejoiced as the Congress proposed an amendment to the 
                    Constitution in 1919 and as Tennessee, the last State 
                    needed for ratification, approved that amendment on 
                    August 18, 1920, by a single vote, when a young 
                    legislator heeded his mother's plea to support 
                    suffrage. On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was 
                    finally proclaimed part of the United States 
                    Constitution, fulfilling Susan B. Anthony's pledge that 
                    ``failure is impossible.''
    
                    Women's Equality Day, while a fitting occasion to 
                    commemorate this great victory of wisdom over 
                    ignorance, is also a time for sober reflection that 
                    American democracy is a work in progress. The 
                    Declaration of Independence was only the first step in 
                    our long journey toward equality for all Americans. And 
                    while we have made much progress, until all women have 
                    an equal opportunity to develop their full potential 
                    and to make contributions that are accepted and 
                    welcomed by our society, our freedom as a Nation will 
                    be incomplete.
    
                    Let us observe Women's Equality Day, then, both as a 
                    celebration of past achievement and a promise for the 
                    future: a promise to promote and protect with vigor and 
                    vigilance the rights of all our citizens; a promise to 
                    decry the policies of exclusion and to pursue the ideal 
                    of equality for every American; and a promise to 
                    empower all of our people to take their rightful place 
                    as full and equal partners in the great American 
                    enterprise.
    
                    NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the 
                    United States of America, by virtue of the authority 
                    vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United 
                    States, do hereby proclaim August 26, 1995, as 
                    ``Women's Equality Day.'' I call upon the citizens of 
                    our great Nation to observe this day with appropriate 
                    programs and activities.
     
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                    IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                    sixteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord 
                    nineteen hundred and ninety-five, and of the 
                    Independence of the United States of America the two 
                    hundred and twentieth.
    
                        (Presidential Sig.)
    
    [FR Doc. 95-20748
    Filed 8-17-95; 11:32 am]
    Billing code 3195-01-P
    
    

Document Information

Published:
08/18/1995
Department:
Executive Office of the President
Entry Type:
Presidential Document
Document Type:
Proclamation
Document Number:
95-20748
Pages:
43345-43346 (2 pages)
EOCitation:
of 1995-08-16
PDF File:
95-20748.pdf