[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





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 Proclamation 6816--Women's Equality Day, 1995
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  Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 160 / Friday, August 18, 1995 / 
Presidential Documents  

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 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.
 
[[Page 43346]]


                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