This August 2020, we, as a nation, are celebrating a landmark in American women’s history: the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment ratification to the Constitution giving women citizenship and the right to vote. The Suffragists encountered many roadblocks on their journey to become voters, yet they displayed incredible perseverance in the 72-year struggle. The Heritage Society’s exhibit, Houston Women Cast Their Ballots: Celebrating 100 Years of the Right to Vote, in the Museum Gallery at Sam Houston Park will be available for onsite visitors and an online Virtual Tour. This exhibit will reveal the efforts of thousands of women in the state of Texas, especially those in Houston, through documents, photographs, historical objects, and textiles curated by historians Betty Chapman and Anne Sloan. Extensive research by the Houston Genealogical Forum produced information not previously published about Harris County women, and especially Black women and their voting rights in 1920. 

The exhibit, which also includes a lecture series and events are presented in partnership with the Houston League of Women Voters, and in conjunction with the Houston Public Library and University of Houston Suffrage Centennial Book Club and will be open until March 2021. 

There will be online/live lectures and discussion panels throughout the year on the third Thursday of each month that will continue the story of Houston Suffragists women and their lives, as well as women trailblazers, and current issues of women as we continue the fight for equality. Our speakers include published historians, legal professionals, founders and executives of top women’s organizations, and many professors from several Houston universities.