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5 <br /> to vote. The amendment was ratified into the United States Constitution the following year on <br /> August 18, 1920. <br /> The first reported attempt to introduce women's suffrage legislation in North Carolina was led <br /> by a group from Asheville, the North Carolina Equal Suffrage Association ("NCESA"), in 1894. <br /> In 1913, the NCESA, an affiliate of the National American Woman Suffrage Association elected <br /> Barbara Henderson of Chapel Hill as President, who initiated suffrage legislation in 1915 and <br /> 1919. However, the legislation failed to pass. <br /> Once Congress approved the 19t" amendment in 1919, 36 states needed to ratify the <br /> amendment in order for it to be included in the United States Constitution. In June 1919, <br /> Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan were the first to ratify the amendment. Within the following <br /> year, 32 additional states ratified the amendment, with North Carolina or Tennessee poised to <br /> become the 36t" state. <br /> Southern States were adamantly opposed to the amendment, and seven of them - Alabama, <br /> Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia - rejected it prior to it <br /> being considered by the North Carolina General Assembly. On August 11, after rejecting <br /> ratification of the amendment, a majority of the members of the North Carolina House of <br /> Representatives sent a telegram to their counterparts in Tennessee telling them that they had <br /> not ratified the amendment because it interfered with states' rights and urging the Tennessee <br /> legislators to reject ratification too. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36t" state to <br /> ratify the 19t" amendment by a margin of one vote. North Carolina would not ratify the 19tn <br /> amendment until May 6, 1971. <br /> If not for Gertrude Weil, and the legions of suffragettes before her, the march toward the <br /> women's right to vote may have stalled again. Weil's organization, the North Carolina Equal <br /> Suffrage League launched the North Carolina Chapter of the League of Women Voters, a non- <br /> partisan organization that educates people on the political process. Gertrude Weil served as the <br /> organization's first president. <br /> Women in the United States were not the first women to gain the right to vote. When the 19tn <br /> Amendment was ratified, women in New Zealand, Finland, Norway, and Sweden already had <br /> the right to vote. <br /> Commissioner Price read the proclamation: (members of the League of Women Voters <br /> were also present) <br /> ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br /> PROCLAMATION RECOGNIZING THE 100T" YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE <br /> 19T" AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION <br /> WHEREAS, an organized movement to enfranchise women began in July 1848 at a convention <br /> in Seneca Falls, New York; and <br /> WHEREAS, through the efforts of brave and courageous women referred to as suffragists who <br /> sacrificed family, personal life and financial resources for over seventy years to gain equal <br /> rights for women, especially the right to vote; and <br />