The women's poll tax repeal movement in the United States was the attempt, predominantly led by women, to secure the abolition of poll taxes as a prerequisite for voting in the Southern states. After women were granted the right to vote in 1920, some Southern states introduced or expanded poll tax statutes in order to disenfranchise them. In response, women began organizing to repeal these laws (poster pictured), initially to little effect. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, both black and white women pressed at state and national levels for the abolition of these laws, and also filed lawsuits. Louisiana abandoned its poll tax law in 1932, and the number of women voters increased by 77 percent. Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas followed. In 1964, the Twenty- fourth Amendment was passed, prohibiting poll taxes as a barrier to voting in federal elections. The Supreme Court finally ended the struggle after four decades in its ruling on Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections in 1966.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_poll_tax_repeal_movement

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1658:

After a devastating defeat in the Second Northern War, King Frederick III of Denmark–Norway was forced to give up nearly half his Danish territory to Sweden to save the remainder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Roskilde

1910:

French aviator Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to receive a pilot's licence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymonde_de_Laroche

1924:

Three violent explosions at a coal mine near Castle Gate, Utah, killed all 171 miners working there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Gate_Mine_disaster

1966:

Nelson's Pillar, a large granite pillar topped by a statue of Lord Nelson in Dublin, Ireland, was severely damaged by a bomb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson%27s_Pillar

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle: (figuratively, humorous, simile) A woman is capable of living a complete and independent life without a man. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_woman_without_a_man_is_like_a_fish_without_a_bicycle

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Survival in a stable environment depends almost entirely on remembering the strategies for survival that have been developed in the past, and so the conservation and transmission of these becomes the primary mission of education. But, a paradoxical situation develops when change becomes the primary characteristic of the environment. Then the task turns inside out — survival in a rapidly changing environment depends almost entirely upon being able to identify which of the old concepts are relevant to the demands imposed by the new threats to survival, and which are not.   --Neil Postman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Neil_Postman