August 26 of each year is designated in the United States as Women’s Equality Day. Instituted by Rep. Bella Abzug and first established in 1971, the date commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, the Woman Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave U.S. women full voting rights in 1920. Here are some links for more information connected with this commemoration

Feminist attorney, activist and Congresswoman Bella Abzug was born  in 1920. She was the second Jewish woman elected to Congress (in 1970) and earned a place on Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” for her outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War (Abzug was a co-founder of Women’s Strike for Peace). Abzug was a strong supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment , she also coauthored the Freedom of Information Act, among other groundbreaking pieces of legislation.

After leaving Congress, she co-founded the Women’s Environmental and Development Rights Organization to transform United Nations policies towards women and international development. As a girl child, Bella was an accomplished reader of Hebrew prayer, a graffiti artist and musician, a competitive marbles player, and a rule-breaker who said kaddish in synagogue for her father (a butcher) at age 13 although females were barred from doing so. A 1977Galluppoll named her as one of the twenty most influential women in the world.

“The inside operation of Congress — the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the coopting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building — is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.” —Bella Abzug