Proclamation 5518

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

Sixty-six years ago our Constitution was amended for the nineteenth time-to grant women a cherished privilege of citizenship in a free Nation, the right to vote. Since then, women have not only availed themselves of their access to the voting booth, they have gone on to take part at every level of politics and government. We as a Nation are much the better for this fundamental enlargement of our public life.

Women's growing participation in public life has been paralleled by their increasing importance in every field. All of us benefit from the accomplishments of women in commerce, law, science, medicine, the arts, and every other area of human activity. We are most grateful for all of these achievements, just as we are for women's special role at the heart of the family and for the freedom of opportunity women have to determine the vocations they wish to pursue.

Each year we celebrate August 26, the anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, as "Women's Equality Day," to honor the many contributions of women to our Nation.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 26, 1986, as Women's Equality Day. I call upon all Americans to mark this occasion with appropriate observances.

In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of August, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and eleventh.

RONALD REAGAN

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 10:18 a.m., August 27, 1986]