Women’s Suffrage Turns 100

The Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, in partnership with federal, state, and local leaders, will illuminate the country in purple and gold on August 26 in celebration of 100 years of the 19th Amendment and women’s constitutional right to vote. The WSCC invites institutions, organizations, and individuals nationwide to join them in marking this historic moment by signing up to participate in the Forward Into Light campaign.

Through this nationwide initiative, named in honor of the historic suffrage slogan, “Forward through the Darkness, Forward into Light,” the WSCC is working with America’s leaders to light buildings and landmarks across the country in the historic suffrage colors of purple and gold on August 26, 2020. That date marks 100 years since the 19th Amendment became fully certified into the U.S. Constitution, effecting the single largest expansion of voting rights in our nation’s history.

Institutions nationwide have committed to illuminating their structures to honor the suffragists who lobbied, marched, picketed, and protested for the right to the ballot, never giving up on the fight for equality. Buildings and landmarks that will light up in purple and gold at nightfall on August 26 include The White House, the One World Trade Center, Niagara Falls, the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, Smithsonian museums, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Library of Congress Jefferson Building, the National Archives Building, and presidential libraries, and more than 50 National Park Service sites across the U.S. plan to join the celebration. Additionally, the WSCC has partnered with Snapchat to virtually commemorate the Forward Into Light campaign. Starting on August 26, Snapchatters will be able to use augmented reality lenses to apply a purple and gold gradient to their surroundings and add their photos to a digital mosaic of suffragists inspired by the WSCC’s Our Story: Portraits of Change mosaic, created by artist Helen Marshall.

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