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Mercer Law School commemorates 100 years of the 19th Amendment

Women were granted the right to vote 100 years ago, and Mercer Law has a special traveling exhibit to teach people about the road to ratification.

MACON, Ga. — Walk through the doors of Mercer Law School and you'll find a new exhibit.

"Seneca Falls was one of these places that all of these women somehow knew was happening without the internet, and they all just turned up here," said Billie Jo Kaufman, Interim Law Library Director and visiting professor of law at Mercer while pointing to one of several banners in the exhibit.

The exhibit is one of 12 traveling the country. 

Each banner lays out a milestone in the work of women to ratify the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.

This journey, Kaufman says, wasn't always easy, and the exhibit shows that.

"They would get excited and then they'd kind of be depressed and disappointed [when it didn't], so each banner kinda tells that process," she said.

The process ended in the passing of the 19th Amendment, changing the Constitution.

Mercer law students Catie Kelly and Chris Wood say they're thankful for their perseverance. 

"It's a fundamental right that all humans get to have, women equal to men, it's important to maintain democracy," Kelly said.

"They (women) affect the population just as much as men do, so they should have the same ability to affect the legislature and various other things that we vote on," Wood said.

The 19th Amendment not only gave women the right to vote, but helped change the role of women today.

"Women are afforded the opportunity to not only vote, but to be in positions of authority and responsibility," Kaufman said.

Mercer Law will hold a panel discussion featuring women in law at the Douglass Theater Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

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