not what we refer to institutionally as the press. >> on c-span3 every saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. lectures in history is also available as a podcast. find it where you listen to podcasts. >> this week marks the 100th swrrs of the women's right to vote in the u.s. certified in the 19th amendment to the u.s. constitution. coming up, a look at how that amendment passed. next, the women's suffrage centennial commission overview of this historic decision by state and country female leaders on the future of the 19th amendment by a look at the decade leading up to passage of the women's vote. later, a look at lesser known suffrage leaders. up next, hillary clinton author elaine weiss and carl a hayden talk about the fight for women to be able to vote. this week marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th

amendment giving women the right to vote. the women's suffrage centennial commission hosted this conversation. >> good afternoon, everyone. and welcome. my name is dr. colleen show gun and i'm the vice chair of the women's suffrage centennial commission. on behalf of the commission and twitter. we're thrilled to bring you womens fight for the vote, celebrating 100 years of the 19th amendment, conversation with elaine weiss and hillary rodham clinton moderated by dr. carla hayden. this is the 100 year anniversary of the 19th amendment and the women's right to vote. and in honor of this milestone of american democracy, congress has officially designated august as national women's suffrage month. the centennial commission is coordinating suffrage month on behalf of the congress and the

american people and if this history interests you, please visit the commission at women's vote 100.org to learn more and engage. but for now let's enjoy this conversation between the three brilliant women as we celebrate the sentenial of women's suffrage and pay tribute to the legacy of the trail blazing suff suffragists who paved the way for our right to vote. >> hello. colleen, thank you for that thoughtful introduction. i'm carla hayden and i join you from the library suffrage exhibit shall not be denied. welcome to women's fight for the vote. celebrating 100 years of the 19th amendment. a conversation with historian elaine weiss and former secretary of state hillary rodham clinton. what ajoy it is to be here today with these two women discussing the history in a sentenial year. i would like to start with brief

introductions. elaine weiss was joining me today for this conversation at the library of congress, is an award winning journalist and writer and historian. as well as the author of the woman's hour, the great fight to win the vote. which tells the story of tennessee's role as the 36th and final state to ratify the 19th amendment. and it is also just been put out into a young reader's edition. also joining us today is secretary hillary rodham clinton. secretary clinton has a long career in public service and i have her 1996 book "it takes a village" that makes sure we all consider young people. she was also making history in 2016 as the first woman to earn a major party nomination for president. she's long been a champion of

women's suffrage history and working with elaine as an executive producer on the television adaptation of the women's hour. so secretary clinton and elaine, let's get started. so to start us off, this is a question for both of you. women's fight for the vote was the longest political and social movement in american history, so why isn't the story of women's suffrage more widely taught or known? secretary clinton. >> thanks so much, carla. i'm delighted to be here with you and elaine to talk about this. i think your question really goes to the heart of one of the challenges that we have faced which is suffrage history was considered at best an add-on to

real american history. it was not given the respect and the academy. it was not the subject of curriculum development. i remember very little in my public school years of learning about anything having to do with the suffrage movement other than eventually women were given, as they would say, the right to vote. so i think that this 100th anniversary, what you've done with the exhibit at the library, the commission's work, obviously great scholarship like elaine's book is filling a vacuum because we did not know enough about the history and how it links with the continuing struggle in america to form a more perfect union and try, despite all of the setbacks and obstacles, to

keep moving toward true equality for everyone. >> and elaine, was it difficult with the research because, as the secretary said, it wasn't part of -- i know it certainly wasn't part of my experience in school at all. >> that's absolutely true. it's not been taught very deeply in our curriculum, but there's always been wonderful scholarship and it just hasn't filtered down which was why i decided to write the book. there's wonderful scholarship and of course there's wonderful primary documents. there's the collection in the library of congress, for me in the tennessee state archives at the sussen jer library. there's wonderful, rich documentation of this movement and yet it hasn't filtered down

to public awareness, so that was one of the things i wanted to do. i wanted to take those primary documents that tell the story so richly and the scholarly work that's been done and synthesize that and tell a story that would intrigue a modern reader, and it has so many of the themes that we're still grappling with today. so i'm very hopeful that going forward in this year there have been wonderful new suffrage books. my book is surrounded by wonderful new editions that tell the story from different angles, and i think that's one of the special things about the centennial, is that it is fostering this interest both in scholarship and in popular culture of looking at this important movement and learning the lessons it can teach us. >> secretary clinton, you served as first lady, as senator,

secretary of state, and the women's suffrage movement, did it have anything in terms of informing your journey, wearing what you wore? that was duly noted. >> yes, indeed, carla. when you come to grips with how hard it was for women to first get included in the constitution to be able to vote and then how much more difficult it was to enforce that right, especially for black women, native american women who were left out because of the way that the amendment was ignored and how it was part of the continuing efforts in many places in our country to deny black people and other minorities the right to vote. so i really see what elaine just said as an important point.

what happened 100 years ago is still relevant today. i certainly, as first lady, as senator, secretary of state and as the democratic nominee in 2016, thought often about how the women who started the suffrage movement, you know, women like sojourny truth, katie stanton, susan b. anthony, these women did not live to see the result of all their labor, and sometimes you have to understand you're in the relay race of history. you're handing off the baton that you have taken from someone else, and i think there's an enormous amount of energy right now at this moment in our history to right wrongs, to bring about a reckoning with racism, sexism, a lot of the challenges that unfortunately we still live with, and that was certainly very present in my

mind during the last years and the early suffragists encouraged and inspired me. >> did you feel that as you stood there, you knew you were carrying on a legacy? >> i did, very much, carla. i felt like, you know, it had been a long time until we got the vote. it had been a really long time since the two major political parties had even considered a woman, the vice presidential ticket and then obviously being nominated, i felt like i was standing in that great river of history. i felt so privileged and honored to play that role, to be there at that moment to try to link our past, present and future. that's why i get so much encouragement and truly i'm optimistic about this time because young people seem so

energized and so committed to trying to do better and to really create more opportunity to bring everyone in to the american experiment. so i was incredibly conscious of it and remain so today because the work continues. it is by no means done. >> that's why, elaine, your book for young readers, making that available to the 10, 11-year-olds, and what's so powerful is that you've given them the history, you show them, and then you give them a call to action. a 10-year-old can pick up your book and you tell them what? >> because activism isn't just a particular time in your life. i think i wanted to show through the story of this decades-long

movement which took on its own momentum through three generations of women and then of course had to go on for another 40 years for black women and almost as long for asian women and native american women. i wanted to show that sometimes these seeds are planted very young so i tell the story of several leading suffragists who really become conscious of injustice when they're children, when they're young girls, and they see their mothers not able to vote or they see their fathers who are judges cannot protect women because the laws are written in such a way that they have very few legal rights in the 19th century. so i wanted to show that the passion for social justice, for any number of passions that young people can recognize

because they have a very keen sense of what is just and what is not, i think it's really important to realize that you can feel that and then gather the tools and the knowledge as an adult or even as a very young adult begin to bring that passion into the world and begin create change. the suffrage movement involved protests and demonstration and also a very sophisticated political strategy. i think that's important that young people realize that it's going to take all of that. >> you're going to bring that powerful story, elaine, and secretary, to the screen and a television series by steven spielberg's production company. secretary, you're the executive producer. so elaine, i have to ask you

this, what did you feel as an author when you got that call? >> well, it was the sort of dream of a lifetime kind of moment, a very special moment. of course for me it was the idea that hillary clinton had read my book. i think that was the most powerful part of it. and then how deeply she understood the power of the story and wanting to make this story available to the largest audience. we agreed we need to tell this story because it's meaningful not just in our history but for how we go forward and how we learn from this experience of having to fight for half of the nation to get the vote. and so the idea of partnering together on this has been one of the most spectacular experiences, and we're working hard to adapt this into

something that young people will be interested in watching. i think it's been a great -- wonderful roller coaster experience for both of us. we are not familiar with the ways of hollywood, and we're learning. would you agree? >> i would agree 100%. carla, i had never done that before. i've read a lot of books that inspired me and i've written letters to authors to thank them for bringing the book alive, but i finished elaine's book "the woman's hour" and i just was stunned by, number one, the beauty of her writing and storytelling and what a compelling, dramatic story it was, that final effort in tennessee to get the final state needed to ratify the amendment. and i have to confess, you know, i vaguely knew that tennessee was the last state and i had come across the ending of the

story where the young legislator changes his vote because of a note he gets from his mother, but i had no idea the real sweep of this historic moment in american history. so i did call her and i said you've got to bring this to a larger audience. you've got to make sure especially that young people and particularly young women understand this was hanging by a powerful interests, the railroad companies, the alcohol industry, you know, a lot of the sort of attitudes about women's place being in the home, the women who were against it, there's so much of this that is still swirling around in our politics. so i was thrilled when spielberg and his team said they were interested, and as elaine said, it's a challenge, you know, and

it's made more so because of the pandemic of taking a historical work like "the woman's hour" which has so much drama already but making it accessible to this generation. so i'm really in awe of elaine's patience. she has been a great guide for the hollywood interest in understanding the significance of this story. >> and part of that drama -- and i as a woman of color -- and i have to just give this quote. when the national museum of african-american history and culture opened, in the dedication president george w. bush said a great nation does not hide its history. it faces its flaws and correct them. and that story of race and prejudice in the suffrage movement is very compelling.

secretary clinton, can you share your thoughts on that, because you mentioned earlier that it's the good and the bad in this movement. >> i think we are coming to understand that every human being has strengths and weaknesses, has real moments of greatness and and, sad ly, moments of departure from that. flaws go with the process of being a human being, especially one on the public stage. so we take very seriously the challenges that were within the suffrage movement, and starting after the civil war because originally, carla, as you know so well, suffrage and abolition were kind of married together.

the grimky sisters were preaching for abolition of slavery but also speaking on behalf of women's rights. sojourner truth, a great example of that, susan b. anthony and elizabeth katie stanton and so many of the pioneers coming out of the seneca falls deck claire ra ation of sentiments in 1848, they were joined by frederick douglass and there was a real marriage of effort, belief, conviction and commitment between the abolitionists and the suffrage movement. after the civil war when the constitution was amended, to give black men the right to vote, that began a rupture between the two movements and i have tried to understand it from the perspective of everyone involv involved, and i do understand some of the challenges that i

think both black and white women tried to deal with and they were sometimes successful in coming together and recommitting themselves to the struggle but even up to the very end when the pressure was on congress and woodrow wilson to actually pass the amendment, you see the calculations of an alice paul or a carrie chapman kad, ida b. wells, two white suffragists and black suffragists trying to figure out how do we deal with both sexists and race. how do we deal with the prejudices that affect both women and black people, and particularly black women. it's a very important part of the story of suffrage and it's a very important lesson to, i think, people in the present, certainly young people going forward. you can't sacrifice any part of

your value system. you have to stay firm. you are against racism and you are against sexism. you want to move everybody forward, and i'd love to hear elaine talk about that because she captures the tension in "the woman's hour" and how black suffragists in tennessee joined forces in a very realistic and pragmatic way with the white suffragists but they also knew that their full rights were not being recognized at that time. >> elaine, you captured it. >> well, absolutely. we see this happen all the time. we're seeing it today where the powers that be pickt two disenfranchised groups against

one another and say only one of you can come through. only one of you can be enfranchised. only one of you are going to get the legislation that you need to protect yourself, and we see this happen over and over again in the suffrage movement. again, learning the lessons of what went wrong, of the attitudes that hindered the idea of universal suffrage of all citizens having the right to vote, i think it's as important of telling the story of what -- in which ways the suffragists succeeded. and i try to do that and i also do bring up this alliance that happened in nashville of black suffragists and white suffragists working together for ratification because black women were working in every city in every town in america, understanding how important the vote was and understanding that in the south the jim crow laws

were going to impede their ability to exercise the 19th amendment and the great disappointment is that the suffragists do not insist that the 19th amendment be enforced and congress refuses to enforce it going forward after 1920. it's left to the jim crow laws propagated by racist legislators in the southern states, and so this idea that you can have constitutional law but if it's not enforced, if the public will isn't strong enough to force politicians to follow through on it, then legislation, even constitutional amendments are not as meaningful or as powerful as they should be. and so that's a really important

lesson for today and it's also a lesson that leaving aside your colleagues, your sisters who you know are going to have trouble exercising this right you have just acquired, you have just fought for and won in the 19th amendment is going to weaken american democracy because you're not taking that next vital step, and that's an important thing for us to remember today as we are in the congress, in our slate legislatures and even in our city municipal government bodies, trying to right some wrongs, trying to make a more equal and a more perfect union. we have to remember that as secretary clinton put so well you can't leave your ideals behind for political expediency.

that said, there are forces that are going to try to make you make those moral compromises, and standing up to that is very important but very difficult. >> secretary, the way elaine just put it, there's hope in looking at history, was probably something that made you say i want to make sure this gets to a broader audience because looking at the history, it takes everyone. so is that part of what you felt? >> absolutely. you know, carla, the library of congress is a repository of history. you preside over and affect the real core of people's memories, their struggles, their efforts, and it's such an important job that you have at the library and you're taking it out of the

library. well, similarly, i think we have to take history not only into our schools but into the media, into social media, into the streets where people have to see as clearly as possible what came before so that they can learn those lessons. elaine just said something that i think is so important and i alluded to it earlier. the relay race of history where you go as far as you can and then you hand off the baton, you keep going, you're in this river. let's say we're having a relay race in a river but every so often the river backs up on you or the people running the locks and dams tell you, i'm sorry, only a few of you can get through this time, you'll have to wait your turn, and it's a tough compromise. on the one hand you want to push as far as you can, kind of claim the progress you've made, pass

off the baton for others to keep going. on the other hand, sometimes those compromises, they just aren't fair. they're not just. so i find this effort that elaine did with "the woman's hour" that a lot of the works that are coming out around suffrage, really important because it tries to fill up the historical record so that we learn more about the black suffragist suffragis suffragists, we learn more about the corporate and political and cultural and economic interests standing in the way of suffrage. we learn that these battles we're fighting today have precedent going back hundreds of years but certainly the last 170 years to the beginning of the suffrage movement. so i'm disappointed that the pandemic stopped us from doing a lot of the events that were planned but i'm thrilled that

through virtual events like this one with you, carla, you and elaine and i can talk to a much broader audience about not only what happened but what needs to keep happening to keep faith with all those early suffragists. >> that's why the saying, there's hope in history, resonates so much that you see that there were conflicts, there were doubts, there were so many things that happened. so because we're in this environment, we also are able to take questions and i have a few for both of you that were submitted to us on twitter. the first is a two-part question and it's for secretary clinton from molly who's a girl scout in east tennessee, so you know, right there. she asks, what advice do you

think the suffragettes would give a girl like me who wants to be president one day? this is key, i learned, molly said, about the suffragettes this year in school. did you? >> well, molly, first of all, i love your question. i did not learn very much about the suffragettes when i was in school and your age, so i'm thrilled that you're learning and of course being from east tennessee, you are right in the place where the 19th amendment was finally passed and i hope you will read the young person's version of "the woman's hour" because it's about nashville, it's about east tennessee, it's about the young man, the legislator from east tennessee who cast the decisive vote. you know, i think if the suffragists were here and let's say from the very beginning of the 19th century through the

final ratification of the amendment, they would be both amazed that a young woman like yourself wants to be president, but they would be thrilled and they would be encouraging and they would tell you i think a couple of things and i'd love to have elaine chime in here. number one, the suffragists, black and white, believed strongly in education. some were able to have a lot of education. some had a rudimentary education put they never stopped learning. they were constantly educating themselves and that's what i think really underscored their preparedness for that long 70-year struggle. secondly, they were great at building coalitions even when sometimes they split apart, but they were in coalitions in different forms for those 70 years and they never lost hope, molly. they never gave up on their goal

of winning the vote for women. and so, yes, it gets discoura discouraging sometimes. you'll have setbacks. no human being can go through life without them. and what will really matter and what i think the suffragists would want you to do is when you suffer a setback or a disappointment in your public, professional, or personal life, do you get back up and keep going or do you stop? of course they would tell you get up and keep going and keep going toward the goal. you might have to adjust your approach, your tactics, but don't give up on what you want and understand how you can make a difference in others' lives in pursuing your own personal interests. >> don't give up. and this question is for elaine and it comes from amanda at the brandywine museum in pennsylvania.

amanda asks, if you could magically discover the previously unknown writings of one suffragette that reveals her own personal thoughts, convictions and motivations, which certisuffragette would yo choose? >> whoa, magic. magic. well, of the suffragists -- there are mysteries. there are documents or personal communications that we don't have, and certainly while i was writing the book while i was in the archives of the library of congress, there were times when i thought, whoa, wouldn't it be great if i knew why they were doing this. i think, to tell the truth, it is -- the leaders at least are really well documented. we do have a fair flnumber of

their letters describing why they're making the choices that they're making. i think perhaps i would like to see ida wells barnett, her diary of entering the 1913 suffrage march here in washington d.c. where she refused to march at the end of the parade and she breaks into the parade and marches with her illinois suffrage sisters and they embrace her and march with her in that illinois delegation. we do have -- i believe the national archives also has some wonderful letters between the suffragists and alice paul who was planning this march and

saying, you know, the march should not be segregated. the march was segregated because the idea that there would be some people who would take offense. some southern women's suffragists and also the community of washington d.c. which was highly segregated in 1913 would take offense if they saw black women marching with white women at the head of the line. so i would love to have seen her immediate reaction. we have that wonderful picture of her marching proudly, having burst into this forbidden spot, but i would have loved to see her note to her family that moment. it could be that it does exist and i don't know of it, but that would, i think, be a searing

description of not accepting the limitations that were being placed on black women even within the suffrage movement. >> that just shows there's more research to do. in fact, our last question is from barbara in washington d.c. and so i'll ask both of you to answer. secretary clinton, maybe you could start us off because barbara asks, what does it mean to you to see how much americans have embraced this history this year? >> oh, it means the world to me, barbara, and i want to put in a plug for the library and the smithsonian to leave up their exhibits because, sadly -- >> we will. >> this pandemic, you know, many people who i know were interested in both have not been able to visit. i want to make a few quick points about this because, you

know, we're having a big debate over a stmonumental statues rig now and a lot of these women deserve statues. ida b. wells, sojourner truth, carrie chapman cad, mary church terrell, a lot of them, alice paul. you know, when we think about, okay, if we're going to have visible, physical memorials, why don't we celebrate those women who through history moved us through that more perfect union. to that end, it was found after a survey that new york city had very few statues of women, so at the end of this month there will be an unveiling of a statue of sojourner truth and elizabeth katie stanton and susan b. anthony in central park where

the only prior woman was alice in wonderland. so it means a world to me that people are focusing on this history, learning lessons from it, adjusting their own understanding of the difficulties that so many people had to overcome to widen that circle of opportunity and to make our constitution real not just to a very small group as it was in the beginning but to every american. so i think it could not have come at a more opportune time for us to resolve that we're going to make our future different, truly different from our past and finally resolve a lot of these long-standing thorny issues about equality and constitutional inclusion that

have really kept us unequal and unjust for too long. >> elaine? >> i totally agree that what commemorating the centennial has allowed us to do is look back, learn lessons and realize that democracy is not given. every generation, sometimes many generations, have to fight to expand it to make it work, but it's also given rise to new research and new interest in localities so that suffrage leaders in rural communities, in native american communities, in hispanic communities are being lifted up out of the archives because it's a little harder sometimes to find those documents, but they're being lifted up, they're being celebrated, they're being written about and spoken about in local terms. so every state is doing more deep research.

every community is doing deep research in preparation for this centennial moment and i think that's really important because we're getting voices of african-american suffragists and native american suffragists and asian-american and all american suffragists and suffrage supporting men, and we're getting those voices back into the narrative. so we're going to come out of this centennial year with a much more complicated, nuanced, deep understanding of what this movement meant and why it's important today. >> i can assure you both and all of our viewers that the library of congress is extending the shall not be denied exhibit and also the companion exit, rosa parks in her own words, and the fact that those two exhibits are now also virtually online and

you can look and we continue to make sure that we reach out to everyone. thank you, elaine and secretary clinton, for joining me in this conversation. this is inspirational and it means so much to have both of you really let everyone know that there is hope in history. so thank you so much, and thank you to the commission. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you all very much. on behalf of the women's suffrage centennial commission and twitter, we would like to thank dr. hayden, elaine weiss, and secretary clinton for sharing this conversation with us today. visit women's vote 100.org to learn more about the suffrage movement and to discover more programs like this one that will be held throughout august in celebration of national women's suffrage month. as the suffragists would say, onward. you're watching american

history tv. every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past. c-span3, created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight, a look at the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. american history tv and c-span's washington journal marked the 100th anniversary with an encore presentation of sunday's live program with colleen shogun, vice chair of the women's suffrage centennial commission. we'll also take a tour of the veets for women exhibit at the smithsonian women's gallery. we'll show images of suffrage leaders and political cartoons and explain how the movement intersected with other

movements. watch at 8:00 p.m. eastern and enjoy american history tv this weekend and every weekend on c-span3. the 19th amendment of the constitution giving women the right to vote was ratified 100 years ago this week. up next, a series of kofrg conversations looking at the history and legacy of the nec t amendment. all in together provided the video. good evening and welcome to this very special celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th amend. i'm the co-founder and ceo of all in together. all in together is thrilled to host tonight's special virtual town hall in partnership with the lbj foundation, the george and barbara bush foundation, the ronald reagan library, the national archives, the national constitution center, and the 19th.