I'm Veronica Mohesky and I'm here with Jody Sowell, president of the Missouri Historical Society.

And today we're talking about a St.

Louis woman and her voting rights case that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

That's right.

If St.

Louis could introduce itself, it might say, "I'm the place where women could have gotten to vote 50 years earlier."

That's because on October 15, 1872, Virginia Minor walks up the steps of the old courthouse and says, "I'm here to register to vote."

And they said, "Well, you can't register to vote.

You're a woman."

She says, "Of course I can.

The 14th Amendment says if you're born in the United States, you have all the rights of citizenship.

I was born in the United States.

Surely voting is a right of citizenship."

And you're right.

That case would go all the way from St.

Louis to the Supreme Court, where unfortunately the Supreme Court ruled that voting was not a right of citizenship.

It would take women 50 more years to get that right.

And so even though the case wasn't a success, what can we learn from her?

Yeah, you know, one thing I tell people is Virginia Minor never thought she was going to get to vote that day, right?

This is a smart woman.

She just knew that if you were going to win the war for voting rights, starts by fighting some unwinnable battles, and she was willing to lead that fight.

And Veronica, it breaks my heart because Virginia Minor is a hero of mine.

But anytime I speak to audiences and ask how many people have heard of Virginia Minor, I'll get one, two hands tops.

This should be a hero of every St.

Louisan.

Well, hopefully more people can learn about her from us.

Absolutely.

Thanks, Jody.