Nashville Public Library Celebrates Ratification Of 19th Amendment With Permanent Exhibit

The Nashville Public Library has officially opened a new permanent exhibit to celebrate 100 years of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

In a virtual ceremony Tuesday, Metro Councilmember Nancy VanReece said the Votes for Women exhibit will focus on history and the importance of voting.

“Student groups from across Nashville are going to come to this space, and they are going to use an interactive voting simulator, and they are going to see at a young age what happens when they vote. Or when they’re blocked from voting, or when they abstain,” VanReece said. “It’s going to be powerful.”

Tennessee was the 36th and decisive state to ratify the 19th Amendment in 1920 and extend the right to vote to women nationwide.

NewsChannel 5’s Vicki Yates, the host of the virtual ceremony, said the exhibit will go deeper than just a celebration of voting and “won’t shy away from the whole story.”

“We’ll talk about race and racism in the suffragist movement. About the Black women whose rights were still denied long after the 19th Amendment became law,” Yates said. “And we’ll talk about the challenges we all face today.”

Those wanting to experience the exhibit in person will have to wait some time, since the main branch of the Nashville Public Library has yet to reopen.