The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and, in 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress and went to the state legislatures for ratification. The ERA failed to receive the requisite number of ratifications before the final deadline mandated by Congress of June 30, 1982 expired, and so it was not adopted, largely because Phyllis Schlafly mobilized conservatives to oppose ERA.
Read more about Equal Rights Amendment: Text, Three-state Strategy, Subsequent Congressional Action
Famous quotes containing the words equal rights, equal, rights and/or amendment:
“The embattled gates to equal rights indeed opened up for modern women, but I sometimes think to myself: “That is not what I meant by freedom—it is only ‘social progress.’””
—Helene Deutsch (1884–1982)
“A great many will find fault in the resolution that the negro shall be free and equal, because our equal not every human being can be; but free every human being has a right to be. He can only be equal in his rights.”
—Mrs. Chalkstone, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 2, ch. 16, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (1882)
“At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“The First Amendment is not a blanket freedom-of-information act. The constitutional newsgathering freedom means the media can go where the public can, but enjoys no superior right of access.”
—George F. Will (b. 1934)