An intimate crowd of Islanders gathered at Mercerdale Park on Thursday to celebrate Mercer Island Women’s Equality Day, continuing a tradition established last year.

Speakers included Deputy Mayor Debbie Bertlin, Councilmember Wendy Weiker and Amanda Clark from the League of Women Voters. Exapsos, a band comprised of Mercer Island High School senior Leah Raissis and her brother Zane, a fifth grader at Lakeridge Elementary, played an eclectic mix of rock songs as spectators enjoyed sandwiches from Gourmini’s food truck and almost 90 degree weather after the speeches.

National Women’s Equality Day on Aug. 26 commemorates the signing of the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote in 1920. Bertlin said the city’s event was a chance to recognize the opportunities women enjoy, and the shortcomings they still face today.

She referenced recent accomplishments of American women, who brought home 27 of the 46 gold medals from the 2016 Olympic games. She also mentioned that black women are now America’s most educated group, but that professional and social opportunities still aren’t equal.

Reading the city’s declaration for the event, Weiker noted that this year, for the first time, a woman has received the presidential nomination from a major political party.

Bertlin said it’s a huge step, “whether you agree with [Democrat Hillary Clinton’s] politics or not.”

Clark said that the League of Women Voters was established six months before the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920, anticipating that 70 years of women’s suffrage activism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries would come to fruition.

Voting is “one of the most important things citizens can do,” Clark said, noting that Americans can celebrate Clinton’s nomination, but should remember that the battle for equality is ongoing. Women are still underrepresented in elected offices across the country, she said.

Bertlin also talked about the accomplishments of Katharine Graham, the first woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company in 1972, Carol Moseley Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate in 1993 and Malala Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate, who was awarded for her advocacy for female education and human rights in 2014.

Bertlin noted the opportunities for young women on Mercer Island, including the Stanley Ann Dunham scholarship. The scholarship, awarded to graduating senior women, is named for President Barack Obama’s mother, who went to Mercer Island High School.

The event is a chance to “celebrate the progress that has been made toward securing women’s full participation in our democracy and renew our commitment to securing equal rights, freedoms, and opportunities for all women,” according to the Mercer Island Women’s Equality Day proclamation made Aug. 1.

For more, see www.mercergov.org/files/MI_Womens_Equality_Day_2016.pdf.