american democracy, congress has designated august as national women's suffrage month. the women's suffrage centennial commission is coordinating national women's suffrage month on behalf of congress and the american people. and if this history interests you, please in visit the commission at womensvote100.org to learn more and to engage. for now, let's enjoy this conversation between these three brilliant women as we celebrate the centennial of women's suffrage and pay tribute to the legacy of the trailblazing suffragists who paved the way for our right to vote. >> hello, colleen, thank you for that thoughtful introduction. i am librarian of congress carla hayden and i join you from the suffragist exhibit, shall not be denied. welcome to women's fight for the road celebrating 100 years of the 19th amendment, a conversation with historian elaine weiss and former secretary of state hillary rodham clinton. what a joy it is to be here with these two women discussing this history in the centennial year. i would like to start with brief introductions. elaine weiss is joining me and she is an award-winning journalist, writer and historian as well as the author of the women'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 has also just been put into a young readers addition. also joining us today is secretary hillary rodham clinton. secretary clinton has a long career in public service. i have her 1996 book, it takes a village. that really makes sure we all consider young people. she was also making history in 2016 as the first woman to earn a major party's nomination for president. she has long been a champion of women's suffrage history and is working with elaine as an executive producer on the television adaptation of the women's hour. secretary clinton and elaine, let's get started. 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? sec. clinton: thanks so much, carla. i'm delighted to be here with you and elaine to talk about this. and i think your question goes to the heart of the challenges we have faced, which is suffrage history was considered at best an add on to real american history. [laughter] it was not given respect in 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 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. dr. hayden: and, elaine, was it difficult with the research because, as the secretary said, it was not a part of -- i know it was not part of my experience in school at all. elaine: it's absolutely true that it has not been taught very deeply in our curricula. but there has always been wonderful scholarship. and it just has not filtered down, which is why i decided to write the book. there is wonderful scholarship, and of course, wonderful primary documents, there is the collection and the library of congress and the tennessee state archives, there is wonderful, rich documentation of the seven decade movement, and yet it has not filtered down to public awareness. so that is 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 and has been done synthesize that into a modern -- synthesize that to intrigue the modern reader. there are so many themes that we are still grappling with today, so i am very hopeful that there have been wonderful new suffrage books. my book is surrounded by wonderful new additions that tell the story from different angles. i think that's one of the special things about the centennial is that it is fostering this interest in public scholarship and popular culture, of looking at this important movement and learning the lessons it can teach. dr. hayden: secretary clinton, you served as first lady, a senator, secretary of state and women's suffrage movement, did it have anything to inform your journey? informing what you wore? [laughter] secy clinton: yes, indeed. when you come to grips with how hard it was for women to first get included in the constitution and 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 the amendment was ignored. and how it was part of the continuing efforts 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 and senator, secretary of state, and as a democratic nominee in 2016, thought often about the women who started the suffrage movement, women like sojourner truth, elizabeth cady stanton, like susan b anthony. these women did not live to see the result of all their labor. sometimes you have to understand that you are in the relay race of history. you are handing off the baton that you have taken from someone else, and i think there is an enormous amount of energy right now at this moment in our history to write wrongs, to bring about a reckoning with racism, sexism, a lot of the challenges that unfortunately we still live with, and that was very present in my mind during the last years. and the early suffragists inspired and encouraged me. dr. hayden: did you feel that as you stood there? you knew you are carrying on a legacy? secy clinton: i did. very much, carla. i felt it had been a long time until we got the vote. it had been a really long time, since any of 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 be thererole at that moment. to try to link our past, present and future, and that is why i get so much encouragement and i am truly 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. [laughter] dr. hayden: and that is why, elaine, your book for young readers, making that available to 10-11-year-olds. and what is so powerful is that you give them the history, and 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? elaine: activism it's not just a particular time in your life. throughi wanted to show the story of this decades long movement, which took on its own momentum through three generations of women. and of course, then had to go on for another 40 years, for black women, and almost as long for asian women and native american women. and i wanted to show that sometimes these seeds are planted very young. so i tell the story of several of the leading suffragists who really become conscious of injustice when they are children. when they are young girls. and they see their mothers not able to vote, or they see that their fathers who are judges cannot protect women because the laws are written in a way that they had very few legal rights in the 19th century. so i wanted to show the passion for social justice, for any number of passions that young people can recognize. because they had a very keen sense of what is just and what is not. so i think it's very important to realize that you can feel that and then gather the tools and the knowledge to, as an adult, or even as a very young adult, begin to bring that passion into the world and begin creating change. the suffrage movement involved protests and demonstrations and also a very sophisticated political strategy. and i think it is important that young people realize that it's going to take all of that. dr. hayden: you are going to bring that powerful story, elaine and secretary, to the screen and television series by stephen spielberg's production company. and partners. and, secretary, you are the executive producer. so, elaine i have to ask you this. what did you feel as an author, when you got that call? elaine: it was a 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 is meaningful not just in our history but 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. we are working hard to adapt this into something that young people will be interested in watching. it has been a great wonderful roller coaster experience for us. we are not familiar with the ways of hollywood and we are learning. would you agree? clinton: i would agree 100%. carla, i had never done that before. i read a lot of books that had inspired me and i've written letters to authors to thank them for bringing the book alive, but i finished elaine's book, the women's hour. and i just was stunned by 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. i have to confess, 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 that the real sweep of this historic moment in america. so i did call her, and i said you really have to bring this to a larger audience and make sure especially that young people and young women understand that this was hanging by a thread. all of these powerful interests, the railroad companies the , alcohol industry, a lot of the attitudes about women's place being in the home, the women who were against it. there is 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. as elaine said, it's a and, challenge. and even more so because of the the pandemic. making a historical work like hour, which has so much drama already. but making it accessible to this generation. i'm grateful for elaine's patience. she has done a great deal and understands the significance of this story. thatayden: and part of drama and i as a woman of color, , i just have to 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 corrects them. and that story of race and prejudice in the suffrage movement is very compelling. secretary clinton, can you share your thoughts on that? you mentioned it earlier. it is the good and the bad in this movement. secy clinton: i think we are coming to understand that every human being has strengths and weaknesses. has has real moments of greatness and sadly, 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 well, suffrage and abolition were married together. the grimke sisters were preaching for abolition of slavery but also speaking on behalf of women's rights. sojourner truth, and so many of the pioneers, susan b anthony and elizabeth cady stanton, coming out of the declaration of sentiments in 1848, they were joined by frederick douglass. so there was a real marriage of effort and belief, conviction, 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 involved. and i do understand. some of the challenges that i think both black and white women tried to deal with. they were sometimes successful in coming together, and recommitting themselves to the struggle, but even until the very end when the pressure was on congress to pass the amendment. and woodrow wilson. you see the calculations of alice paul, carrie chapman, ida b wells or mary church terrel, two white suffragists and two black suffragists trying to figure out how do we deal with both sex 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 the very important lesson to people in the present, certainly young people going forward. you cannot 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. i'd love to hear elaine talk about that, because she captures the tension in the women's hour and how black suffragists in nashville and tennessee joined forces. i think in a very realistic, pragmatic way, with the white suffragists. but they knew that their full rights were not being recognized. -- recognized at that time. dr. hayden: elaine, you captured it. elaine: absolutely. we see this happen all the time. we are seeing it today. where the powers that be pick to -- pit two disenfranchised groups against one another, and say only one of you can come through as the suffragists call it the gates of heaven, only one if 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 universal -- the idea of universal suffrage of all citizens having the right to vote. i think it is as important of -- as important as telling the story of why the suffragists succeeded. and i try to do that. i also bring up this alliance that happened in nashville of black suffragists and white suffragists, working together for ratification because they are working and every city and 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. and it is left to the jim crow laws propagated by racist legislators in southern states. so this idea that you can have constitutional law, but if it's not enforced, if the public will is not 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. so, that is 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 are not taking that next vital step. that is an important thing for us to remember today as we are in the congress, state legislatures and even in our city municipal government bodies, trying to right some wrongs. trying to make a more equal and more perfect union. we have to remember that as well,ary clinton put so you cannot leave your ideals behind for political expediency. that said, there are forces that will try to make you make those moral compromises. and standing up for that is very important but very difficult. dr. hayden: secretary clinton, the way elaine just put it, there is hope looking in history. 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? secy clinton: absolutely. carla, the library of congress is a repository of history. you preside over, in effect, the real core of people's memories, their struggles, their efforts and it is such an important job that you have at the library. and you are taking it out of the library. 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. you know, elaine just said something 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 to -- baton, you keep going, you are in this river. let's say we're having a relay race in a river. every so often, the river backs up on you, or the people running the locks and dams tell you, sorry, only a few of you can get through this time. you will have to wait your turn. it takes tough compromise. on the one hand, you want to push as far as you can, claim the progress that you've made, pass off the baton to keep going. for others to keep going. on the other hand, sometimes those compromises just aren't fair. they are not just. so i find this effort that elaine did with "the women's important.ly and a lot of the work that are coming out around suffrage try to fill up the historical record so that we learn more about the black 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 are fighting today have precedent going back hundreds of years, but certainly the last 170 years. so i'm disappointed the pandemic stopped us from doing a lot of the events that were planned, but i am 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. dr. hayden: that is why the saying there's hope in history resonates so much. that you see that there were conflicts, there were doubts and so many things that happened. because we are in this and so, this environment, we are also 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 is for secretary clinton, from molly, a girl scout in east tennessee. so, 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. [laughter] i learned about the suffragettes this year in school. did you? secy clinton: [laughter] molly, first of all, i love your question. i did not learn very much about the suffragists when i was in school and your age. so i'm thrilled that you are 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 women's hour. because it is about nashville , it is about east tennessee, it's about the young man, the legislator from east tennessee, who cast the decisive vote. if the suffragists were here, say from the very beginning of the 19th century, through the final ratification of the amendment, they would be both amazed that young woman like yourself wants to be president. but they would be thrilled and they would be encouraging. and they would tell you a couple of things. and i would 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, but never stopped learning, they were constantly educating themselves. that's what i think really underscored their preparedness. secondly, they were great at building coalitions, even when they split apart. they were in coalitions in different forms for those 70 years. and that never lost hope, molly they never gave up on their goal , of winning the vote for women. and so yes, it gets discouraging sometimes. you have setbacks. no human being can go through life without them. and what will really matter and what the suffragists want you to do, is when you suffer a setback or disappointment, and 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 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 and pursuing your own interests. dr. hayden: 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 suffragette would you choose? elaine: whoa. magic. magic. well, of the suffragists, there are mysteries. i mean, there are documents or personal communications that we do not have. certainly while i was writing was -- while ii was in the archives of the library of congress, there were times when i thought, wow, wouldn't it be great if i knew why they were doing this? and i think, to tell the truth, it is the leaders at least, are really well documented. we do have a fair number of their letters describing why they are making the choices that they are making. i think, perhaps, i would like to see ida wells, 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 in to the parade and marches with her illinois suffragists. and they embrace her. and they march with her in that illinois delegation. and we do have, i believe the national archives has some wonderful letters between the suffragists and alice paul, who is planning this march and saying, you know, the march should not be segregated. and 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 have loved 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 in that moment. and it could be that it does exist, and i don't know of it but that would be a searing description of not accepting the limitations that were being placed on black women, even within the suffrage movement. dr. hayden: that shows there's more research to do, and our last question is from barbara d.c.shington, so i will ask both of you to answer. clinton, you can start us off. barbara asks what does it mean to you to see how much americans have embraced this history this year? clinton: oh, it means the world to me this year. i want to put in a plug for the library and the smithsonian, to leave up their exhibits because many who are interested in both have not been able to visit. and i want to make a few quick points about this, because we are having a big debate about statuary, monumental statues right now, and a lot of these women deserve statues. ida b. wells, sojourner truth, terry chapman cat mary church , terrell, lot of them. alice paul. when we think about if we are going to have visible, physical memorials, why don't we celebrate those women who, through history moved us toward that more perfect union. to that end, it was found after a survey that new york city has very few statues of women. at the end of this month, there so, will be an unveiling of statue of sojourner truth and elizabeth cady stanton and susan b anthony in central park, where the only prior woman was alice in wonderland. so, it means the 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. it could not have come at a more opportune time for us to resolve that we are 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. dr. hayden: elaine? elaine: i totally agree that what commemorating the centennial has allowed us to do is to look back and learn those lessons. to realize that our democracy is not given. every generation, sometimes many generations have to fight to expand it, to make it work. but it has also given rise to new research and new interests in localities. so that suffrage leaders in rural communities, and native american communities, and hispanic communities, are being lifted up out of the archives because it is harder to find those documents sometimes. but they are being lifted up and celebrated, they're being written about, spoken about in local terms. and so every state is doing deep research. every community is doing deep research, in preparation for this centennial moment. and i think that is really important. because we are getting voices of andcan american suffragists native american suffragists and asian american and all american suffragists and suffrage supporting men, and we are getting those voices back into the narrative. so we are going to come out of this centennial year with a much more complicated, nuanced, deep understanding of what this movement meant, and why it is important today. dr. hayden: 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 exhibit, rosa parks in her own words. the fact that those two are now virtually online, and you can oc.gov. l while we can continue and reach out to anyone. loc.gov. 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 let everyone know that there is hope in history. so thank you so much, and thank you to the commission. elaine: thank you secy clinton: thank you all very much. >> on behalf of the women suffered centennial commission, we would like to think dr. hayden, lane weiss and secretary clinton for sharing this conversation today. visit womensvote100.org to learn more about the suffrage movement and discover more programs like this one that will be held throughout august in celebration of national women's suffrage month. as a suffragists would say, onward. next, anna laymon of the women's suffrage centennial commission talks with u.s. senator marsha blackburn (r-tennessee) about the state's involvement in the women's suffrage movement. 100 years ago, on august 18, 1920, tennessee became the 36th and last state needed to ratify the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote. the women's suffrage centennial commission provided the video. and welcome.ryone, it is national women's suffrage month and i'm here with senator marsha blackburn from tennessee. senator blackburn is the first woman's senator from tennessee. i am from tennessee, chattanooga. and i'm thrilled to sit here today with the senator to discuss suffrage history. let get started. sen. blackburn: absolutely.

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