The Equal Rights Amendment -
A Brief History

In 1923, just three years after women won the right to vote, the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced into both houses of Congress. Between 1923 and 1970, Alice Paul worked to bring the Amendment into each session of Congress for vote each year.

In 1970 twenty leaders of N.O.W. disrupted the U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing on Constitutional Amendment, demanding a hearing by the full Congress on the ERA.  In 1971 the ERA was voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives and passed by a vote of 354-24.  In 1972 the U.S. Senate approved the bill by a vote of 84-4.  The bill was given an arbitrary time limit of seven years for ratification by the states.  In the same year, Phyllis Schafly established the National Committee to Stop ERA.

By 1977 thirty-five states (including Delaware, the second state to pass the ERA) have ratified ERA although pressures from right-wing groups surfaced in the state legislatures.  In July 1978, 100,000 supporters converge on Washington D.C. for the "March for Equality," the largest march in feminist history.  In the next few months, both houses of Congress vote to extend the ERA deadline for ratification.  The following year, ERA opponents attempt to pass rescission bills in at least a dozen states, including Delaware.  The bills are defeated in each state.

During the 1980 Republican Party Convention, the party votes to reverse its 40-year support of the ERA.  In protest, 12,000 march outside the convention.  The party officially takes no stand, but candidate Ronald Reagan opposes ERA.  When Reagan takes office, he is the first President to oppose ERA, prompting 40,000 to march in protest on inauguration day in Washington, D.C.

Running out of time, N.O.W. begins to send "missionaries" to battleground states.  Helen Thomas goes to Florida in a ninth-hour attempt in that state's legislature.  In June 1982, the ERA is stopped three states short of ratification.

Every year, the ERA is introduced each session of Congress and held in Committee, preventing it from going to full vote to pass or reject the amendment.

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