Female delegates at the DNC are wearing white to honor women’s suffrage on night of Harris’ speech

If you think you’re seeing a lot of women wearing white during the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, you don’t need to adjust your television set.

There appeared to be a coordinated effort among female delegates and Democratic supporters as they arrived at the United Center on Thursday afternoon, with security lines and convention floor seats filling up with women clad in white suits, dresses and other attire.

So when Vice President Kamala Harris takes the stage for to accept the Democratic presidential nomination — becoming the first Black woman, and only the second woman overall, to do so — she will be looking out across a sea filled with the color of women’s suffrage, the movement that culminated with American women securing the right to vote in 1920.

The homage is a couture callback to other momentous political events in which women wearing white has played a role, particularly for other glass ceiling moments.

Hillary Clinton donned a white suit when she accepted the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination. And Geraldine Ferraro — the first female candidate for vice president — wore white when she accepted that nomination at Democrats’ 1984 convention.

There have been other moments, too. In 2019, the women of the U.S. House put on a visual display of solidarity during the State of the Union, joined by some of their male colleagues clad in white jackets or ribbons in support. A year later, on the 100-year anniversary of women’s suffrage, congressional women yet again donned white, as a commitment to defending women’s rights overall.

And again, earlier this year, the Democratic Women’s Caucus announced that many of its members would wear white to the State of the Union, intended as a message in support of reproductive rights.

Kate Gallego, mayor of Phoenix, said party officials had asked delegates to wear white Thursday night in honor of Harris’ nomination.

“A lot of women fought for us to get where we are tonight, and we wanted to be part of the celebration,” Gallego said. “So it’s a forward-looking gesture, but also remembering a lot of people fought hard for today.”