"It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights," Clinton intoned, 20 years ago this past weekend. In this famous speech, delivered at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women on September 5, 1995, Clinton condemned the global injustices that undermined women and girls. But Clinton did not travel to China only to point fingers.

"As an American," she said, "I want to speak up for women in my own country—women who are raising children on the minimum wage, women who can't afford healthcare or childcare, women whose lives are threatened by violence, including violence in their own homes." At the time, Clinton saw that women all over the world were in crisis. She wanted to represent them.

"It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls," she continued, or "when women and girls are sold into slavery or prostitution for human greed. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small," she said, or "when thousands of women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war."

Courtesy Hillary Clinton Official Campaign

Her words made a dramatic impression. Clinton, the New York Times said at the time, had spoken "more forcefully on human rights than any American dignitary has on Chinese soil," including her husband. Looking back, Tina Brown termed it "the speech that launched a movement." As Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, wrote in an email to Elle.com: "Hillary Clinton helped solidify the idea that human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights." The actress and humanitarian Salma Hayek is still fixated on those immortal words. "It is as if we were considered less than human [until then]," she says. Because of Clinton, she adds, "the eyes of the world were opened to this injustice." Madeline Albright, who also attended the conference, recalls that "without question, Hillary Clinton's speech was the high point of the conference. It was beautifully written and forcefully delivered; it expressed strong support for family values, rapped China for its failure to allow freedom of expression, and highlighted the sentence that would become the hallmark for a global movement."

But it almost never happened.

"It was tenuous," admits Melanne Verveer, who then served as Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton in the White House. "A lot of people did not think she should go." That summer, Chinese-American dissident Harry Wu had been arrested, and relations between the Chinese and United States governments had soured.

"It made people nervous," muses Ginger Lew, who has advised the Obama administration on economics and attended the conference in Beijing. "There was a lot of pressure on her not to go. ... But I don't think there was any question in her mind. She was very clear. She was going." Clinton, Verveer says, "knew that this could make a difference. She wanted to push the envelope on behalf of women and girls around the world, and, throughout that up and down, she just focused on the speech."

Given the fracas, it was, Verveer explains, "a very closely held set of remarks."

"It wasn't a speech by committee—put it that way," former Clinton speechwriter Lissa Muscatine says. Together with just a few staff members, including Verveer and Muscatine, and her husband, Clinton toiled over the speech. The president, Verveer asserts,"was totally behind her going." But while President Clinton was supportive, Verveer says it was Hillary who insisted on the specifics of the platform. She did not want to "water it down," Muscatine adds.

Though it was a trailblazing development and groundbreaking for its forcefulness, Clinton had already started to focus on gender issues. Earlier that year, Clinton had traveled to Copenhagen for the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, and she had toured innovative projects and programs for women in South Asia. "By the time she had gotten to Beijing," Verveer points out, "she had an awful lot under her belt—certainly as First Lady, working in the United States, and increasingly on the world stage."

From the moment she landed in Beijing, Clinton was energized by the prospect of the speech ahead of her. "We were working around the clock," Lew notes. "I remember Secretary [of Health and Human Services Donna] Shalala had fallen asleep in the middle of a session, and I just remember that Hillary reached out to give her a boost—pretty hard. She let out this little scream. [Clinton] just never got tired. She outworked all of us."

"When we walked into the convention hall, it was just literally packed to the rafters."

"She was very relaxed—very chatty," Lew continues. "You could tell she was on a real high, really just energized from the tremendous welcome she had gotten. When we walked into the convention hall, it was just literally packed to the rafters—just brimming...You could just feel the buzz. We all sat down, and we waited."

While Muscatine remembers that she and Verveer were "petrified," Clinton did not seem nervous. Outfitted in a pink suit and pearls, she was the picture of diplomatic tact. But as soon as she addressed the audience, she was thunderous.

"When she uttered those famous words, the place just erupted," Lew states. "In those few words, she…legitimized at the highest level of government around the world that this was an issue that had to be dealt with. The United States was going to be a leader in pushing this agenda, and she was personally vested in this issue."

Clinton wanted the speech to "draw attention to the experiences of hundreds and hundreds of millions of women around the world who were voiceless," Muscatine says. "And really in a very vivid and compelling way get people everywhere to understand that the world was not going to make progress if women continued to be marginalized," she remembers. "The end of the speech was really a call to action."

When it was over, delegates streamed toward Lew to praise the speech: "So many of them rubbed my shoulder or my arm almost as if the magic of the moment could be captured by that." Verveer recalls that "people were on their feet, reaching out to her, screaming as she left the hall. Even delegations that may have been divided in terms of their positions on some of the issues were saying it was a remarkable speech."

"People were on their feet, reaching out to her, screaming as she left the hall."

In the years since Clinton issued her battle cry, the speech still resonates."To this day, you can travel in the world and meet women who were there and remember it so well," Verveer says. "Women introduce themselves to her and say, 'I was in Beijing.' It was one of those moments that made it seem like we were all in this together." Bonnie Campbell, whom President Clinton had recently appointed to head the U.S. Department of Justice's newly created Violence Against Women office and who Hillary invited to attend the Beijing conference, adds that when she travels abroad "even today," women "know those words. It is incredible to appreciate how much it did in retrospect." Secretary Albright echoes the sentiment: "In the years since, I have met many women from many places who tell me they were at Beijing, or had friends who were, or who were inspired by the conference to launch initiatives."

"For four decades, she's been working on these issues," says Muscatine, who is happy to admit her favoritism. "Her presidential campaign is just an extension of her general philosophical belief that this is the role of government"—to recognize who is "struggling at the margins" and to create "a society in which people can truly work hard and get ahead." Women have always been "at the center of that."

For all the progress that has been made in the years since the speech was delivered, however, there remains much work to do. The U.N. reported this year that only one in five parliamentarians is a woman. More women than ever are being paid for their work, but wages continue to be inequitable between men and women. Despite its widespread condemnation, one in three women worldwide is the victim of violence. "While much progress has been made towards achieving its goals, no country – including the United States – has fulfilled its agenda," says Secretary Albright. "My hope is that this anniversary will serve as a rallying cry for a new generation of leaders to recommit to making progress towards gender equality and women's empowerment."

For Clinton, the memory has obviously not faded. Marking the anniversary on the trail in New Hampshire this weekend, Clinton quoted her own words.

"Human rights are women's rights," she told supporters. "And women's rights are human rights—once and for all."

Mattie Kahn Mattie Kahn is a writer who lives in New York.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io