Independent Lens

- What do we want?

- Equal Pay!

You have to, one, respect women.

Two, you got to pay them their fair share.

We won't go back!

My body!

My choice!

Rapper: So, when it comes to the bar It's higher than it's ever been The Equal Rights Amendment has been introduced in every session of Congress since 1923.

Woman on megaphone: How do you spell equality?

Crowd: E-R-A!

Woman: What do we want?

Crowd: E-R-A!

Woman: When do we want it?

Crowd: Now!

Woman: What we have is power.

Hillary Clinton: Women's rights are human rights once and for all.

We won't go back!

[Shouting] Man: For the 8th year in a row, the Equal Rights Amendment has gone down to defeat in the Virginia General Assembly.

[Rapper singing indistinctly] Women are human.

We need not allow ourselves to be brainwashed by people who predict chaos for us, tell them they lie and move on.

Crowd: E-R-A!

Male opponents in the Senate called it the unisex amendment.

They said it would destroy traditional man-woman relationships.

Woman: Some girls have a great deal to offer and they certainly don't make any contribution to the business world, sitting home with their children or cooking dinner for their husband.

The spirit and the quest for equality and to be treated with dignity and justice, the fight for a woman's equality has been going on for centuries.

Woman: Every modern constitution in the world has explicit gender equality protections in the text except for the United States.

[Rapping continues indistinctly] So hot that we come this far [Indistinct] What brought me to fight for the ERA is a recognition.

I'm fighting the same fights that my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents fought.

I'm a history nerd.

You can't be a Virginian and not studied how our government was founded.

Actor on film: Do we hereby lay claim to the land of Virginia?

McClellan: In November 1619, the government in Jamestown says, "Well, if we're gonna be permanent, we need wives."

So they start recruiting women, but when they get here and get married, lose their rights, have no right to property, can't vote.

That's how this country was founded, with white land-owning men at the top and everybody else serving them.

When it comes to the relationship that women have with our Constitution, it's interesting because the Constitution was really only created to reflect the priorities of about 5% to 7% of the American population-- men of European descent who owned property.

They were the only people who the Constitution is even in any way mindful of.

And then, we had a revolution... [Shouting and gunfire] and Thomas Jefferson wrote, "All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with unalienable rights."

It didn't include women.

It didn't include Black people.

Definitely didn't include me.

Woman: Well, good evening everybody.

I'm really excited to be moderating our panel tonight.

"A new era for the ERA.

Women of Color Lead the Way."

I hope you love the title of that.

[Cheering] It's not that someone said, "Well, I don't want to write the Constitution to protect women."

It's that they weren't thinking about women at all.

Woman: We were left out of the Constitution and not only left out, we were discriminated against.

To form a more perfect union, you have to do a lot.

We've been fighting on that, those of us who were left out for a couple hundred years, right?

Woman: I've had more opportunity than my mother, but I want my daughters to have it better than I've had it.

[Crowd cheering] For our children!

I had a very child-centric model in our household, and now Mom is kind of working on something that feels to me bigger than just our family, and yet it is about our family.

It's not for me, but my kids and their kids and their kids' kids.

My older daughter, who I like to call my head lobbyist, was noticing that women were not in the Constitution, and so she asked me, "Mom, Thomas Jefferson "said all men are created equal, "and we know he wasn't talking about women, so have they fixed this?"

Aw, you girls are so cute.

Rapper: We have a lot to accomplish, let's go Woman: In law school, we talked about how women are not protected in the same way that race is and other protected categories.

That was really shocking to me.

That was my first encounter of really hearing about the Equal Rights Amendment.

So I decided to run for office, and I became pregnant, found out later, on Valentine's Day, of course.

Weeks later in my campaign, I remember telling one of my friends, and her first response was, "Oh, so when are you dropping out of the race?"

And I looked at her and I was like, "OK, well, thank you "for saying 'Congratulations,' but why is that an option?

Why is that the first thing that you said?"

Woman: For Jennifer Carroll Foy, winning her House of Delegates race might not have been the biggest event of the week.

She's been doubly blessed.

Midway through her first-ever campaign, she gave birth to Xander and Alex.

Women think they have rights they simply don't have.

Woman: Most people would go, "What?

What do you mean that's not there?"

It isn't.

We have made huge strides in terms of women's advancements, but none of these protections are durable.

We all know that they are subject to rollback.

Woman: The U.S.

Supreme Court today dealt a major blow to affirmative action.

Cheng: Congress can create rights and they can take them back.

Lester Holt: What many thought was settled nearly 50 years ago when the Supreme Court affirmed a Constitutional right to an abortion.

Cheng: And we also have a Supreme Court right now where the majority wants to take us back to the original founder's time.

We're not going to go back.

What changed since 1973?

What changed?

Foy: Laws can be changed as quickly as legislators change their minds, and Supreme Court decisions can always be reversed.

My fundamental rights shouldn't be dependent upon who's elected to office, so the only way to solidify equality is by an amendment in the United States Constitution.

Cheng: The ERA is a proposed amendment to the U.S.

Constitution, which explicitly guarantees equality on the basis of sex.

It was first drafted in 1923 by Alice Paul and other leaders of the suffrage movement.

She was a Quaker.

The teachings of the Quaker religion was equality.

It was all equality.

I went back there at the Presbyterian Church in Seneca Falls and put a plaque there where she introduced it.

And it said, "Equality of rights under the law "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

Cheng: From 1923 to 1970, the ERA was proposed to Congress every single year.

McClellan: Getting a Constitutional amendment passed is hard.

Cheng: The original founders who wrote the draft of the Constitution wrote in Article V. to allow the rules for how you amend the Constitution.

It deputizes Congress and the States as the 2 entities that play a part in this.

The Constitution--there are many aspects of it that over time have become antiquated.

The Amendment process-- they designed it in such a way that you will acquire hyper consensus, which means 3/4ths of the states would need to ratify in order for it to pass.

250 years ago, when there were 13 colonies, that was probably more doable.

It has to pass the House and the Senate and Congress.

Then it needs to go to the States, and 38 states have to ratify.

People in Congress used procedure and used a lot of processes to prevent the ERA from going out to the floor for a vote, and that was something that was effective for about 50 years.

There just wasn't enough political will in Congress to send it out for a vote on the Senate floor until the seventies, when the momentum shifted.

[Women chanting indistinctly] Man: Suddenly thousands of nice women took to the streets, protesting, demanding economic rights and political powers.

Woman: What we need is to thrust new people into the limelight and to show the range and breadth of talent among women all over this nation.

[Cheering] Woman: We just want what men have had all these years.

Woman: Equality is powerful.

Pass the Equal Rights Amendment with all speed.

The majority of Americans are in favor of that.

Really, what we're fighting for is a system of justice.

The women's movement was at that time pretty bipartisan.

The Republicans had endorsed the ERA nationally before the Democrats.

In fact, Betty Ford was the co-chair of the Countdown Campaign, and we knew if we could get it on the floor that they wouldn't vote against it.

The Republican party has been committed to women's issues for over 100 years.

It was a Republican congress that passed suffrage.

It was a Republican congress that introduced the Equal Rights Amendment.

There was majority support for the ERA, but there was a set of very strong voices against it, 5 to 10 senators, and they were so vocal that they just tied up the ERA and wouldn't send it out for a vote.

As a compromise, there was a 7-year time limit that was attached to the ERA for state ratification.

Walter Cronkite: Almost every Congress since 1923, there has been proposed a Constitutional amendment to guarantee equal rights for women.

Well, today, it finally won approval.

[Applause] Cheng: There was overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress.

The Senate passed it 84 to 8.

That's incredible to think of in today's terms.

Smeal: I was there the day it passed out of the Senate.

We were all happy, and I noticed that Alice Paul wasn't there.

One of our people went back and found her literally sitting at the desk that had been Susan B. Anthony's desk, crying.

"Why are you crying?"

She said, "Because they added a time limit."

Smeal: "They tricked us.

They tricked us," she kept saying.

"This amendment has a time limit."

The agreement now goes to the states and must be ratified by 38 of them.

Cheng: Within the first year of Congressional passage, 30 states ratified the ERA.

That's amazing.

In today's terms, virtually impossible.

8 more states must ratify it before it can become law.

With me are representative Martha Griffiths, Democrat of Michigan and author Phyllis Schlafly.

Phyllis Schlafly: I would like to thank my husband Fred for letting me come.

[Laughter] I love to say that because it irritates the women's libbers more than anything I say.

[Laughter] There was a very strong and robust anti-ERA movement led by Phyllis Schlafly.

Schlafly: ERA won't do anything for you.

Cheng: She was incredibly independent and accomplished in her own right and a career person.

She had a master's degree.

She was an expert in national security policy.

She ran for Congress.

She earned a law degree, raised a family.

This might sound controversial to people, but I really think that she was a feminist.

She's also the original troll.

You're saying women are superior to men, then?

Schlafly: Well, naturally, I think women are superior to men.

Man: Well, then, you don't want equality.

Schlafly: Oh, absolutely.

I think equality would be a step down, and I don't want equality.

[Laughter] Cheng: She was really effective using these zero sum tactics at the time of getting people to fear the ERA.

Woman: Equality-- an interesting word.

Some people want me to pay more for my car insurance and life insurance, the same high rates that men pay.

The same people say I should have the right to marry a woman and my brother the right to marry a man.

Equality?

You've got to be kidding.

This peculiar kind of equality is called ERA.

I don't want their kind of equality.

I already have real equality.

By 1975, we start realizing, "Wait a minute.

This isn't working.

It's slowing down."

And we were worried sick.

Cheng: Phyllis, really, in particular, appealed to white suburban housewives.

Schlafly: The Equal Rights Amendment would make unconstitutional any state law which makes it the obligation of the husband to support his wife and children.

These are the laws which give to the wife her legal right to be in the home.

The really interesting thing about that argument is that it completely left out all the other women who didn't live those lives and who didn't even have those benefits.

Black women, women of color, women who from the beginning of the founding of this country had to work and raise children at the same time and be the breadwinners.

Phyllis Schlafly led the shift in the conversation around the ERA and opposition to be more about abortion, which really kind of led to a halt in momentum in ratification.

Schlafly: And if you want to deny a marriage license to a man and a man, or deny a homosexual the right to teach in the schools or to adopt children, it is on account of sex that you would deny it, and that would be unconstitutional under ERA.

The American people and the American women do not want abortion.

They do not want lesbian privileges, and they do not want universal childcare in the hands of the government.

[Applause] Phil Donahue: Has there ever been an amendment to the Constitution that has generated as much interest as the attempt to enact the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution?

We'll talk about all these things with Phyllis Schlafly.

Would you welcome Mrs.

Schlafly?

Man: Phyllis Schlafly of Alton, Illinois.

Larry King: We'll meet her on "Larry King: Let's Talk."

And it isn't a matter of what you or I think.

It's a matter of what is shown in the legislative history and in the leading Constitutional-- Our time is up.

Hornung: In 1978, they had about 35 states to ratify it, and they didn't have the final 3 states.

And so they took it back to Congress, and Congress extended the deadline to 1982.

Archie Bunker: And there goes the whole country, Meathead!

When you see the data, they're giving women the same pay as men and giving women the same jobs!

Where the hell is it all gonna end?

What are you gonna say when a woman is managing the Mets?

I'll say we have equality, right?

Right.

Right.

Right, Michael?

[Laughter and applause] Let's think about that a minute.

[Laughter] Yeah, yeah!

And while you're thinking about it, think about this.

Equality is unfair!

All: What?

That's right!

What's the point of a man working hard all his life trying to get someplace if all he's gonna do is wind up equal?!

Woman: 15 states have not ratified the ERA yet.

Until 3 more states do ratify it, and we have a June of 1982 deadline, we do not have the benefits of the Equal Rights Amendment, yet.

The cause of equal and human rights will reap what is sown.

What will you reap?

What will you sow?

[Applause] Velshi: The anger of evangelicals was activated by segregation, but segregation would prove to be a less-than-palatable way to motivate evangelical voters on a broad scale, not enough to win elections with.

That's where the issue of abortion came in.

Senate races in Minnesota and Iowa in 1978 showed that an anti-abortion, pro-life movement could unite the religious right and give them real political power.

Republican politicians campaigned accordingly.

In 1980, the right wing of the Republican party took over, and they took the ERA out of the platform.

TV announcer: Only one man has the proven experience we need.

Ronald Reagan for President.

Let's make America great again.

Good evening.

I'm here tonight to announce my intention to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

This is not little game that we're playing.

Our opposition is quite powerful... and they don't always play fair.

Well, I believe in equal rights for everyone.

I don't believe in discrimination of any kind, and certainly not against women, but I don't believe in the amendment.

Steinem: There are 3 more states.

We have 35, so it is very agonizing because the vast majority of Americans support it, way over 60%.

The states in which most Americans live have ratified it, but none of us will have it unless we get those 3 more states and given the schedule of legislatures in their meetings, it seems unlikely.

Letterman: Now, is-- Steinem: Possible, possible.

It is June 30th, and at midnight tonight, the Equal Rights Amendment becomes a lost cause.

Cheng: When the ERA time limit expired, people gave up and they said, "We tried and we failed."

Smeal: All these women who went door-to-door, who went and talked to their legislators, who begged them to vote for equal rights for women learned one major thing: they're just as smart, they're just as good.

It made them interested in politics.

Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg: I remain an advocate of the Equal Rights Amendment, I will tell you, for this reason.

Because I have a daughter and a granddaughter, and I know what the history was, and I would like the legislature of this country and of all the states to stand up and say, "We want to make a clarion call that women and men "are equal before the law, just as every modern human rights document in the world does."

I have introduced it every single year that I've been in Congress, and I have not been able to pass it, nor have I been able to even secure a hearing on it!

When the ERA was passed, Congress put a deadline in it.

There's nothing in the Constitution that says Congress has that authority, but they did it.

Cheng: The most recent addition to the Constitution, the 27th Amendment, was proposed by the first Congress, so it took over 200 years to be added to the Constitution between when Congress first passed it and when the states finally ratified it.

What it showed is, there's no--no time limit.

Cheng: That really triggered some legal brains to say, "Wait a minute, are deadlines even legitimate?

"Wouldn't Congress be able to go and change it, "'cause that's what Congress' role is, representing the will "of the people who support the ERA, "deciding we don't want a time limit to this?

We want to remove it."

Or... and this is a kicker.

It doesn't matter.

We believe the time limit itself is unconstitutional.

And then... The American dream is dead, but if I get elected President, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again.

Trump: You and I will walk in.

[Person speaking indistinctly] What?

Singer: Hey!

Cheng: The catalyst was Donald Trump's election.

I think everybody woke up with this collective consciousness of, like, we needed to do something.

I'm a never-Trump guy.

I never liked him.

Singer: Hey!

McClellan: That was a wake-up call.

The gains of all women were threatened, and the ability of those who hadn't really achieved equity were pushed even farther behind.

I ran for the Senate.

I announced 4 days after the election.

State senators and state assembly members led by Black women, queer women, thought to themselves, "We're 3 states away.

We can add to that list and become the last 3 states."

This bill is about equality, period.

Black women, they had the vision, and I think Black women have always had the vision, understanding that you have to change the Constitution, you have to write in foundational protections in the founding document.

Otherwise, it's just really hard to build on a foundation of equality.

Black women specifically, and women of color in general, have been part of this fight from the beginning, but we haven't always been out front.

With 8 states of support, no women seeing the end of the line.

Cheng: Those ideas that we can just go ahead and affirm the ERA were seated in places like Nevada and in Illinois.

In Nevada, which happened in 2017, it's due to the vision of State Senator Pat Spearman, who singlehandedly ratified the ERA in that state.

Don't listen to anybody that tells you "We can't do it," because together, we will get this done.

Cheng: Illinois happened, and, you know, that's the state of Phyllis Schafly.

I stand upon the shoulders of women like Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, and so many others.

Developing right now, history on the Illinois House floor.

Illinois is now the 37th state to ratify the amendment.

The country still needs one more state to ratify it.

We are just one state away.

So, in a lot of ways, Virginia was on the wrong side of history.

We were capital of the Confederacy.

We came kicking and screaming into the modern Civil Rights era.

You know, Virginia had one of the 5 cases in "Brown vs.

Board of Education."

We were the state that had the case that struck down bans on gay marriage.

By becoming the last state needed to ratify the ERA, we can be a leader rather than being dragged into doing what is right.

Virginia, it really could be you, plus you are the birthplace of Chris Brown, Rick Santorum, and Pat Robertson, so, frankly, you [bleep] owe America this.

Man: Speak on anything in section 9 of our agenda.

That is our proclamations, our recommendations, or the ERA resolution.

Now is the time for you to speak.

Man: Thank you.

[Applause] Hi.

My name is Eastan Weber.

I live in Powhatan, and I-- [Crying] Oh, I can't do this Mom.

Woman: It's OK.

You can do it.

I'm sorry, I-- You want me to do it?

It's OK.

It's OK.

[Crying] I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for your time.

She wrote this, so we're going to read it.

"She has been very lucky to have parents and teachers "who have always believed in her.

"They encourage her to get good grades in school, "play hard in soccer and basketball, "and more importantly to always use good manners.

"What none of this has prepared her for is that "when she leaves her parents' home, "things will not be fully equal for her.

"She knows that she will make 78 cents on the dollar, "that her friends of color will get paid 63 cents, "and one of her Latina friends will make 54 cents on the dollar.

"I will give equal effort but not have equal protection "under the Constitution.

"The ERA has been around way too long and it needs to be ratified.

"Please consider supporting my full and equal future by passing this resolution."

Thank you.

[Applause] This ERA amendment is not about equality.

It is about the sameness of men and women.

This is contrary to the laws of nature and to the health and safety of women.

Future legal decisions will lead to monstrous, unintended consequences.

I will not vote to harm women, neither should any of you.

Woman: More women than ever before were sworn into the Virginia General Assembly.

They're vowing to reverse 46 years of failing to support the Equal Rights Amendment.

If we can get it to the floor, we would have the votes on both sides of the aisle.

But getting it to the floor is the difficult part.

The committee chairman refused to allow even a hearing on the ERA.

Man: When we were in the rules committee, we presented the bill.

I was given about 2 minutes to present it.

Based on the research that we've done, there's an archivist, a federal archivist with the United States, David Fiero.

He has classified it as a failed amendment.

Couple things.

Number one is, the state of Nevada ratified the Equal Rights Amendment last year.

Man: Do we live in Nevada?

Man: No.

Not that I checked, but I just--I don't think the U.S.

archivist or the Library of Congress or whatever decides what the law is or isn't.

I think the U.S.

Supreme Court decides that, so... [Cheering and applause] The irony is that at least in the Virginia legislature, a majority of both chambers actually support the bill, but we can't get it on the floor for a hearing.

All in favor of that, please signify by raising your hand.

McDougle: So...5.

All in favor of not passing the bill, please raise your hand.

[Booing] McDougle: The motion fails.

[People shouting indistinctly] We've let you say your peace, and I think it's time that we, uh, move on.

Man: SB 234, it concerns the-- Crowd: ...overcome We shall overcome Man: The advisory council-- We shall overcome someday Mr.

Chairman.

Last year, I was not as involved.

I supported but wasn't sort of involved in the fight for ERA, and when I was in the committee meeting and the white women in the room started singing "We Shall Overcome," I was uncomfortable.

Woman: Mr.

Chairman-- Crowd: We shall overcome someday McClellan: And I mentioned that to a white woman later, and she said, "Well, why?"

And I kind of looked at her and I said, "Did you at any point feel like you were in physical danger, "standing in that room singing that song, "testifying on behalf of the ERA?

"Because during the Civil Rights Act, people got shot."

That's when I really started to think that they need some voices of color.

I think that's a big part of why the ERA has taken so long.

There are some excuses because people don't want to actually talk about the real reason they oppose it, but it really boils down to how broad are equal rights going to be?

So, the reason women of color have the most to gain is because of the intersectionality of the discrimination that we face.

Black women and Latinas and Asian women face discrimination both on the basis of being women and being racial minorities.

And the impact of over 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow on Black women, that impact didn't go away when the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed.

That requires intentional action to unwind that impact.

When you have both the protections of the 14th Amendment on the basis of race and the ERA, you're able to really start to unwind that 300-year impact.

I felt it was very important to bring that intersectionality perspective to the conversation.

For so long, we were relegated to the back.

The March on Washington, led by Alice Paul, was a really good example of that.

There were 45 Black women that marched in that parade.

22 of them were the founders of my sorority, Delta Sigma Theta.

It was their first public act, and yet Alice Paul asked the Black women who were going to participate to march in the back because she didn't want to offend Southerners.

What we've learned from history is that the 21st-century gender justice paradigm, all the gains that we've created for women have centered and mostly benefited white women.

What the ERA can do is to center the voices of the most marginalized women of color, of Black women in developing policies that take into account historical marginalization.

I think had we been more cohesive from the beginning, this would've probably been done a long time ago, but that's part of the strategy.

Anytime you have a Civil Rights movement, it's divide and conquer.

[Applause] Good morning, Virginia Union.

Virginia Union started out of the ashes of a slave jail, and so you know how to fight for equality, and the fight for equality is not finished.

I'm in a position to help remove inequity and barriers to equity.

It's personal.

When I think about my great-grandfather whose parents were born slaves, who had to take a literacy test to vote, and his wife, my great- grandmother couldn't vote, to now me as a member of the State Senate sitting on the committee that decides Constitutional amendments and voting issues, it shows just in my own family history, that moral arc.

There's still a lot of work to do.

Reporter: If you see the bus, you can't miss the message.

The Equal Rights Amendment is back.

Singer: Na na-na na na na, na na-na na na na Tick tick boom Reporter: Next year, Virginia could become the 38th state and the last state needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

Man: We're gonna start off at William & Mary speaking to students.

Foy: OK.

Man: Then you give the keynote at the Law Symposium.

Then we go to Hampton University.

These are also students.

Foy: This is today?

Man: This is today.

[Laughs] Singer: Na na-na na na na... Reporter: Prince William County delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy is the chief sponsor of the House bill to endorse the proposed Constitutional amendment.

Foy: I'm Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy, and I represent the 2nd District in the House of Delegates here in Virginia.

Many people don't know, women are not entitled to equality in the United States Constitution.

As recently as 1996, Virginia Military Institute paid millions of dollars to prevent women from entering its doors.

I remember being in my JRTC classroom in high school watching the Virginia Military Institute decision on TV and hearing Justice Ginsberg say that "Women can do all things if given the opportunity."

I said that "I'm gonna go to VMI."

I had 1,500 male cadets who did not want me there, did not think I deserved to be there.

It was really disappointing because it was 1999.

We're not talking about the fifties, we're not talking about the 1800s.

While I now have a detached retina in my left eye because of some of the incidents that happened at VMI, I can tell you that my shoulders are stronger.

When you solidify women's fundamental rights as human beings equal to men... that is the only thing that's acceptable.

[Cheering] Are you guys with me?

[Louder cheering] All right, so let's hear it.

E-R-A, E-R-A, E-R-A, E-R-A.

[Cheering] Hornung: Being able to say 4th-generation Republican gets me in doors that I would never get in otherwise.

[Buttons clattering] Here in Virginia, our Equal Rights Amendment actions have been very liberal, middle-class, white lady, run, driven.

Foy: Good evening!

Hornung: We, first of all, want to bring in women of color, and then we want to bring in Republicans because we don't want this to be a partisan issue, and then we're also bringing in men.

Alex Keaton: There is a job to be done here-- Yes!

Right on!

not only by us but by women everywhere!

Yes!

Keaton: How long must we wait?

How long are we expected to accept these indignities?

How long, Lord?

[Audience cheering] Miller: This is not just a woman's issue.

If your partner is not being paid fairly because of gender, doesn't this have a negative impact on your family?

I see it as something that could help men as well as help women.

They're not getting the paternity leave that women get and what are we saying as a society that we don't want our men to be just as important in a baby's life as the mother?

Man: When I look at my daughter, I want to make sure that she has the same opportunities for getting a job, for promotions, that she has a constructive and supportive workplace.

[Applause] Maloney: Let me tell you, the whole world is watching now to see what's gonna happen in the legislature this year for the ratification, hoping that Virginia will be the 38th state.

[Cheering and whistling] Woman: The show starts in January when we all arrive on the campus of the Capitol for the General Assembly session, and that's when all those petitions Kati's gonna tell you about, we hope that there's more than enough to impress the men and women of the General Assembly that this in 2019 is going to be the year that we get it right.

McClellan: We have resolutions in both the House and the Senate to ratify the ERA.

Hornung: Only the bills and resolutions that have made it through one of the chambers, they get crossed over and then they proceed in the other chamber at that point.

McClellan: The General Assembly only meets for 45 days.

If it doesn't get out of the House or send it at crossover, then it's done for the year.

Man: Jennifer McClellan!

[Cheering] McClellan: Hey, everybody!

So, thank you all for being out here today.

I know it's very cold, but the bill's gonna be up.

And you already know that.

I'm voting yes.

[Cheering] The ERA is going to be the issue that defines the 2019 session and, by extension, the 2019 elections.

Man: Do some of these members know, in fact, what this requires?

This is not properly before this body.

You might as well have the country of Bolivia ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

The only thing you can do is you have to start all over again.

The worst thing you can say about that deadline is that it's debatable.

It is not the General Assembly's job to predetermine the will of the court.

It is the General Assembly's job to consider legislation and vote on it and then let the courts sort it out.

That's called for processing.

Man: The clerk will call the roll.

All those present will record their vote "Aye."

The clerk will close the roll.

Woman: Senate Joint Resolution 284, ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, reported from the Committee on Privileges and Elections with a substitute.

Woman: I rise to speak in favor of equal rights, yet in opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.

The bill itself actually victimizes the very women it claims to protect.

Dear sweet women, please realize this amendment is not about you.

Women's sports, women's locker rooms and bathrooms will all be a tradition of the past, exposing women to increased incidences of rape and sexual violence.

That's ridiculous.

Chase: One of the leaders of the ERA movement who I have so much respect for and I've really enjoyed spending time talking with her is Eileen Davis-- [Women groan] and just this November had her daughter Abigail Spanberger win the 7th Congressional seat for Congress.

Case in point, Abigail did not need the ERA.

Man: We all agree that the equal treatment of men and women under the law is a fundamental American value.

I ask you to consider what other fundamental American value do we reject because of our concern over how some may interpret it.

I can't think of one.

McClellan: Now, some of the arguments we've heard alluded to today and the parade of horribles that we've heard is not going to happen.

The basic tenets of our democracy were penned by a Virginian Thomas Jefferson, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

He didn't mean me, because I'm of African descent and because I'm a woman, but my ancestors fought, marched, filed lawsuits, died, to give me the right to vote and stand here today as a member of this body.

[Music playing, clapping rhythmically] Black women are constantly being asked to choose between their blackness and their womanhood, and it's impossible because the discrimination we faced, the prejudice we faced is based in both.

Man: Are the Senators ready to vote?

[Buttons clicking] Have all the senators voted?

Clerk will close the roll.

Smeal: Money is a major issue.

As long as you can discriminate on the basis of sex and race, you are ripping off a large segment of the population financially, and because women are half the population, it's big money!

This is a political argument for power.

In my opinion, if you forget that, you really don't know what the issue is really about.

Woman: Ayes 26, Nays 14.

Man: Ayes 26, Nays 14.

Senate Joint Resolution 284 is agreed to.

[Cheering] McClellan: It was very exciting just to know that I, as a Black woman, could stand on that floor and speak in favor of the ERA and vote to make Virginia the 38th state was amazing.

The battleground will really be among the members on the House side.

Hornung: The House of Delegates has never in 45 years taken a floor vote on ERA.

I thought surely they had done it in like the seventies or eighties at least once.

I might've started my pressure campaign a little earlier if I knew that it had never gotten a floor vote.

Smeal: One of the things that's really hard is to tell people how partisan this has become.

It was not partisan at first, but, you know, they have a sponsor in Virginia, it's Republican.

We feel like we'll get some Republican votes in Virginia.

I don't think the public is aware of the fact that to get elected in a primary on the Republican side takes only about 8% of the vote.

That's how few people are voting in primaries.

So you're being controlled by a small right wing group, well-organized and extremely well-funded.

Business interests are funding anti-LGBT, anti-transgender, anti-women's rights issues.

Some Republicans do not even want it to be brought to the floor because they don't want people to be held accountable for their vote.

No one wants to come out and say, "I am against equality."

"Really?

You are?

"What else are you against?

Are you against children being able to go to school?

"I'm dying to hear.

What other things that we consider basic human decency are you against?"

They can bottle this up and keep it from coming out of committee.

They appear to be using plenty of procedural ways to do that.

They will not let it happen because they suddenly believe in it.

They're gonna only let it happen because it's politically expedient.

That's what we have to convince them is that it's politically expedient to get this done.

Hornung: So, our plan now is we're gonna just make 200 of these legislator notebooks.

Ha ha!

Right?

Women: Right.

Yeah.

Crazy bunch of feminists sitting around a table stuffing notebooks.

[Laughter] Hornung: Takes the stamina of childbirth to make it through this.

[Laughter] We were trained for this.

The big question is, can we get past Kirk Cox?

Has no intention of ever letting this get a full hearing, because they can give it a quote unquote full and fair hearing in a subcommittee and kill it, and we're done.

Woman: Right.

Is that--you think that's the strategy?

That's absolutely their strategy.

Miller, voice-over: Kirk Cox is the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, not a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, and would ensure that we always got a bad committee assignment with a committee controlled by someone who had total disdain for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Hornung, voice-over: Today we found out that the resolutions were all assigned to the House Sub 1 Committee, which is chaired by Delegate Margaret Ransone, and she's highly unsupportive.

I actually still feel comfortable that they're going to get this done because they really have to.

They have too many seats that will be a bloodbath in November.

[Horns blowing] [Crowd chanting "ERA"] [Crowd cheering] Ransone: If you are here today to support this amendment, I would ask that you just please stand.

Thank you.

If you're here in opposition, please stand.

Thank you.

Schuyler VanValkenburg: If you could just unpack the sister amendment, the 14th Amendment, right, equal protection, and kind of drill down a little deeper for why we need the ERA as opposed to the 14th Amendment.

Foy: The 14th Amendment was really to address race.

It was never meant to address women.

Race discrimination has the highest classification of scrutiny that the law in this country allows.

Sex discrimination or discrimination against women is treated at intermediate scrutiny, which is a lower level, which is why when women make sex discrimination claims to the Supreme Court, we lose.

We want sex discrimination cases to be analyzed in the same way that the courts analyze race, religion, and national origin.

Ransone: Senator, if something like this is passed, are you telling the Commonwealth of Virginia that we're not gonna be looking at a bunch of lawsuits?

Man: I don't think we should reject fundamental rights because we're concerned about lawsuits.

We could make that same argument about litigation about should we not have the First Amendment, the Second Amendment.

If we are focused on protecting the equality of men and women, that should be our first and foremost focus.

Before we vote, I want to say something.

I'm a woman, and I'm an elected member of the oldest legislative body in the New World-- the Virginia House of Delegates.

I serve with mostly men in the Republican caucus.

We don't always agree, but they respect me.

God made us all equal.

I'm not gonna support this ERA resolution that's before the body today.

We're ready to vote.

[People murmuring] Foy: We tried to pass the Equal Rights Amendment resolution on a bipartisan basis.

We did not get the victory today that we wanted.

Ruth Davis: Lordy, don't leave me All by myself... Ransone: For years, this ERA amendment has come before my subcommittee, and we did not vote for it.

We did not let that get out.

Woman: We're not done, and if they continue to stonewall, it's at their own peril.

We will remember in November.

Woman: OK.

Thank you.

Foy: I want to send a clear message to all the activists who have worked tirelessly on this issue.

Your hard work, blood, sweat, and tears was not for nothing.

Your efforts are inspiring.

You built a 20,000-person campaign that engaged the most diverse group of activists ever in support of the Equal Rights Amendment in Virginia... [Applause] and we will be back.

I look at my daughter, and I say, "Look what I've accomplished.

No one ever stopped me."

We should not be relegated to second-class citizenship because we are female.

You're smart.

You can make it happen.

You won't need an amendment to do that.

And I am sick and tired of people telling us that "You have made it.

Be OK with what you have been given."

And she can make America great again.

Foy: You will not placate us.

Only thing you've done is added fuel to our fire because we will come back next session, and we will make this happen.

[Cheering and applause] Are you willing to fight?

Crowd: Yeah!

Are you willing to fight?

Crowd: Yes!

Will we give up?

Crowd: No!

Foy: Will we concede?

Crowd: No!

Now is our time.

November is coming.

We have kept tabs on what is happening.

We are not OK with it.

Women is deserving of equality, and if we cannot change their minds, we will change their... Crowd: Seats!

Thank you.

[Cheering] Davis: Lordy, don't leave me All by myself [Applause continues] Hornung: On Friday, a number of newspapers declared ERA dead, and that is not accurate.

We're simply on pause.

The House committee does not have the authority to kill it, so it's still sitting there alive.

We have an ERA resolution sitting in purgatory that will survive all the way until till February 23rd, so that is a very important thing to know and understand, and the way to get it out is that Democrats have a maneuver where they could call for it to come straight to the floor and they would only need two Republicans to join them.

The political maneuvering to get it on the floor... Yep.

What is that?

We have written them a rules change.

OK.

The rules change... is pointing out the obstruction that really we do need to have this because democracy is not working, and if it fails because all the Republicans stay lockstep, then we, as a campaign, don't have to go support the fake supporters.

We still got to figure out a House strategy, how to get this to floor.

Yeah, pressure on the speaker.

I know, but even the Republicans who've been good for us are starting to, like, toe the party line.

Mm-hmm.

I hate that.

Mm-hmm.

Hornung, voice-over: Kirk Cox is the speaker of the House.

He could single-handedly bring the Equal Rights Amendment to the floor for ratification if he wanted to.

I will never stop fighting for the promise of life as long as I hold a gavel, as long as I can speak into this microphone.

As long as I have the privilege of this floor, I promise to fight for the promise of life.

Cheng, voice-over: When these restrictive laws are allowed to stand that restrict abortion access, that restrict bodily autonomy, and that essentially reduce gender equality in this country, we are borrowing against the future of young people.

They are the people who are gonna be the most impacted and the most hurt by these policies.

Call Kirk Cox, please, every single day.

"Allow this to be voted on," because that's where we're held up.

"I am your constituent, "and I expect you, as my elected official, to give it a fair debate and vote on the House floor."

Hornung, voice-over: The job of advocates is to make sure that the speaker feels the pressure.

That's one of the things we did in Virginia, is, we brought together groups who had all been working on it for a long time but maybe not working on it together.

Cheng, voice-over: We have to make a distinction between laws that promote equality and laws that contract equality.

The ERA can inaugurate systemic-wide, transformative change to enhance our democratic systems to embrace more equality based on gender, rather than just leaning on and accepting a system that was broken to begin with and a system that, frankly, was set up not to help the most marginalized people in this country.

[Cheering and applause] [People chanting "ERA"] Man, on PA: "You are my son.

"This day have I begotten you.

I will be to you a father, and you shall be to me a son."

Man, voice-over: So I'm a Christian, and I believe what the Bible teaches about the role of a man and the role of a woman, and I think that the ERA is going against God's natural order.

The Bible says that men are to be the rulers and women should marry.

They should be obedient to their husbands and keepers of the home.

Woman: We still need you at the doors.

We still need you on the phones to those legislators who refuse to listen to the Equal Rights Amendment on the floor.

Let's celebrate because we are finally gonna get equality under the law.

[Cheering and applause] We have been organizing for months.

Thank you to Kati Hornung, who is part of VA Ratify ERA, and all you grassroots warriors.

[Cheering and applause] Hornung: In the greatest country of the world, we do not have explicit gender equality in our Constitution.

86% of international constitutions have this.

It's time we get it into our Constitution, and we're not taking no anymore.

[Cheering and applause] So why are so many women giving up so much personal time, not paid, to support the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in Virginia?

What I've come to learn is that most women working like maniacs on this are doing it to productively process something in their past or to change the world for the future.

It starts when you're a little kid and there are grown men yelling that you need to be pulled off the soccer field so their son can play, except I was better.

[Laughter and applause] In college, you go on to the abuse of sexual assault, and a couple of years out of college, you're getting underpaid, and you don't know it till somebody slips you that magical spreadsheet.

It wasn't equal pay for equal work.

They reported to me.

They were being paid thousands more than I was.

I'm done.

I'm tired of it, and I don't want this for my kids, so we need them to send it straight to the floor.

The House of Delegates needs to get this done.

[Cheering and applause] Hornung, voice-over: A lot of the women who worked around the clock in Virginia have a rape in their background, and I didn't realize how many of my inner team had that until the Kavanaugh hearings, and my entire team was falling apart.

Mine was an abusive relationship, and I kept dating him well over a year after that rape.

For me, until we get to a more equitable society where women are cherished for what they bring to the table and that we're all there together equally, there will be more people in those terribly abusive relationships.

Very strong women can be abused.

Rape kits are still not being processed, and women are still sitting in jail for self-defense, and so I want to know when the women of America are gonna get to a sustained level of outrage where we are done.

Foy, voice-over: What we've done is executed a Hail Mary.

With a simple majority of the vote, we can actually discharge the Equal Rights Amendment from the Privileges and Elections Committee and bring it up to the floor, and then we would have our vote.

If we have 100 sitting delegates, we just need 51 votes.

We'll only need two Republicans to come to our side.

There's a couple of them who have said that they support the Equal Rights Amendment.

My response is, "Prove it."

If I were them, I would be pretty concerned about, "If I vote no, what impact is that gonna have on my coming back?"

[Indistinct conversations] Man: Lord, we come before You this day, and our desire is to be in Your presence, and we want to enter Your presence with thanksgiving.

We worship You because of that.

We bow down.

We kneel before You, our Maker, and even before You formed us in our mother's womb, You knew us and set us apart.

Give us the moral courage to protect the precious life You have granted.

We pray all these things in Your great name.

Amen.

Eileen Filler-Corn: Mr.

Speaker, a few short weeks ago, the ERA resolution passed out of the Senate with bipartisan support by a vote of 26-14.

The ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, enshrining gender equality in our United States Constitution, deserves to be debated on the floor of the House and deserves an up and down vote on its passage, yet once again, another barrier has been created.

Foy: I look around this assembly, and I see powerful men from every walk of life.

I see men that still allow the legacy of fear from opening the doors of opportunities for others.

To fail to bring the amendment up for a vote is ignoring 81% of all Virginians, so you can either walk in fear, or you can walk in faith and join the majority of states and pass the Equal Rights Amendment.

Thank you.

[Applause] [Gavel bangs] Cox: House will come to order.

[Applause continues] We've been accused of trying to silence people, trying to oppress people, trying to make other people into second-class citizens.

If that's not fear mongering, I don't know what is.

Mr.

Speaker, in several states, this amendment language, when adopted in those state constitutions, has resulted in the very strict scrutiny that advocates want, and they want it applied in situations relating to an unfettered right to an abortion right up until the moment of birth and at taxpayer expense.

This rules change is not about the ERA, though.

It is about how we conduct our business in this body, how we have for 400 years-- the precedent, the protocol, the procedure of this House, and I would urge the body to defeat this rule change.

Shall the resolution be agreed to?

[Ping] Cox: Clerk will close the roll.

Man: Ayes 50, Nos 50.

Cox: Ayes 50, Nos 50, the resolution is defeated.

Man: Mr.

Speaker-- Eileen Davis: What just happened is, they voted not to vote because they don't want to have to go back to their districts and defend voting against the Equal Rights Amendment.

Patricia Arquette: When I was a little girl, I lived in a hippie commune near Bentonville, Virginia.

It's pretty staggering that a very small number of men in positions of power can block this legislation from even getting to the floor, where it would pass.

I think that's shameful, and I think it's ridiculous.

It should be enough of a reason that women should rise up and make sure they're voted out of office.

Hornung: That first year, we did talk to a lot of politicians, and we had people reporting back anything they heard.

You know, it polls at crazy percentages, and everybody wants it done.

I think even the conservative paper was surprised that it wasn't gonna get done.

You have to make a noise in order for the so-called leaders to want to lead in this area.

My answer is to stop talking to politicians and instead talk to day-to-day Virginians, day-to-day Americans.

We went after the 20 tightest races, really making sure that everybody in that district knew who the equality candidate was and knew what was on the line, and we have had a very, very white, Republican House legislature for years, and that doesn't reflect Virginia really at all.

Virginia was in the spotlight at the U.S.

Supreme Court this morning.

The issue this time were 11 House districts racially gerrymandered to downplay the impact of African American voters.

Male reporter: Last year, a federal court ruled lawmakers had packed too many African-American voters into 11 Virginia House of Delegates districts.

That decision led to a new map that would benefit Democrats.

Republicans argue, the old districts were fine.

By watching the suppression of a set of voters, you're watching a shift not only in their ability to be represented in the democracy, but also, it totally changes the policies that are gonna be passed.

Once they were not packing the African-American vote into particular districts, all of a sudden, a lot of races became way more competitive.

It was pretty much the first free and fair-ish election that we've had in Virginia in probably two decades.

Both of my kids, obviously, support the issue.

Mom is kind of working on something that feels, to me, bigger than just our family, and yet it is about our family.

The VA Senate is ours, FYI.

McClellan, voice-over: In the House, we need the Democratic majority to get the ERA out of committee and to the floor.

Hornung: I don't actually care if Cox is out.

I just need a change in the House leadership.

Oh, no.

What happened?

They called Chase.

Did she win?

Are you kidding me?

That is so depressing.

Hornung: All right, so they're showing +3 Dems, and as long as Dems take back every other seat they had last session, that means we have a clear path to the floor for the Equal Rights Amendment.

[Cheering] They're calling the House.

They're calling the House.

Yeah!

[Cheering] Woman: Na na na na Hey, hey, hey Good-bye Hornung: Tonight we have a new House leadership, which is really exciting.

The Democrats have taken the majority in the Virginia House, and that means that the ERA can go to the floor, and it's a very exciting night for all of us.

Ha ha ha!

For the first time in 26 years, Democrats have taken control of the Virginia legislature.

Now, this is a big deal.

Republican Kirk Cox held on to his seat in the House, but with Democrats controlling both chambers, he will no longer serve as the speaker.

[Cheering] Foy: In the words of Maya Angelou, "I come as one, but I stand as 10,000."

In this case, I stand with 160 million women and girls throughout this country waiting for their constitutional equality.

Never did I think that I could do something to help change the United States Constitution, and yet here we are.

Miller: I am 66 years old, and I began working for the Equal Rights Amendment when I was 12 years old.

Eastan Weber: We are grateful for all the people in this room and in this building that have been fighting for equality before we were even born, but I've also been disappointed by the elected officials that have lectured me in public hearings and by the others who have looked me in the face, patted me on the head, and then turned around and voted against me.

Not only did they vote against my fair and equal future, they voted against the 75 million other girls in this country fighting for equality in the Constitution.

I am not old enough to vote, but I am old enough to show up, and I am old enough to help change history for future generations.

Is there any unreadiness among those here?

All those in favor, signify by your votes.

All those opposed, signify likewise.

Clerk will close the roll.

The measure passes 13-9.

[Cheering and applause] Whoo!

[Chanting "ERA"] Foy: She was a superstar.

Wasn't she a superstar?

Yes.

I'm so proud of her.

Proud of both of my girls, my babies, my daughters.

I'm so proud of her.

Future's so bright, you gotta wear shades.

We're not done.

We're not done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Foy, voice-over: What just happened today is, we had a full Privileges and Elections Committee hearing for the Equal Rights Amendment, where it's never passed out of the committee ever, so next it's gonna go to the floor for a full vote.

[Gavel bangs] Filler-Corn: The House will come to order.

Members, please take their seats.

Calendar for the Virginia House of Delegates, January 15, House Joint Resolution 1, ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, reported from Privileges and Elections.

Foy: 80% of all Virginians support women's equality in the form of a Equal Rights Amendment.

while individuals on the other side may not like the statistic or may not like what's about to happen here today, this is fact.

Gilbert: I am wondering if this is going to be protocol going forward.

We're certainly all curious over here about why there's a substitute on something that's-- Filler-Corn: Delegate, I think you're out of order.

Delegate from Alexandria... Gilbert: Madam Speaker-- Delegate from Alexandria... Madam Speaker, excuse me.

Could the Speaker explain her ruling as to why I am out of order when speaking to a motion?

You were not asking a question.

If you had a question specifically for the delegate-- Gilbert: Point of order.

I was speaking to the motion, Madam Speaker.

Are you rising to speak to the motion?

If so, you have the floor to speak to the motion, Delegate Gilbert.

Thank you, and I was finished, Madam Speaker, but thank you very much.

Thank you, Delegate Gilbert.

Madam Speaker, today is a historic day.

Women and men around the country have been working to achieve ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment for decades.

I wish I could say that this dedication and hard work has not all been for nothing, but sadly, I cannot.

Congress set a time limit of 7 years for this amendment to be ratified.

Just last week, the Justice Department issued an opinion noting that the amendment had failed.

I look forward to the day when a new Equal Rights Amendment is passed by Congress and sent to the states.

Foy: Virginia has long failed to recognize that all citizens are entitled to equality under the law.

Virginia fought against women's right to vote.

Virginia fought against desegregation, and we all remember Loving v. Virginia, where Virginia fought vehemently against interracial marriage, and it's Virginia again on the battleground of equality.

The time is now for this body to go on record as supporting women's rights as human beings equal to men to finally be enshrined into the United States Constitution.

We will no longer suffer in silence as we are discriminated against.

We will not stand by while being paid less.

We won't keep quiet about violence perpetrated against women with impunity.

Very rarely the votes we take matter to people around the nation and the world.

This is a vote of a lifetime.

The question is, what side of history do you want to fall on?

And I want to be unequivocally clear that there is only one way to spell "equality," and that is simply... Foy and supporters: ERA.

The question before us is, shall the resolution pass?

All those in favor, vote aye.

The clerk will close the roll.

Woman: Ayes 59, nays 41, abstentions zero.

For the women of Virginia and the women of America, the resolution has finally passed.

[Cheering and applause] McClellan, voice-over: This is probably the most significant thing I've ever done, and so I'm pretty excited.

I'm pretty excited.

[Chuckles softly] Same here.

No, no, no.

No.

It's tears of joy.

Because of our Virginia ratification, it has become a much bigger conversation in Virginia, and we do have a culture of joy around equality in Virginia.

Male reporter: That's the vote and reaction from the House of Delegates.

It means Virginia is the final state needed to ratify the ERA.

"Equality of rights under the law "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any of its states on account of sex."

[Chanting "ERA] [Chanting continues] When we ratified in Virginia as the 38th state and we thought for sure it will get published and just added to the Constitution, but it did not.

Is it too late for the Equal Rights Amendment to become law?

Judy Woodruff: 3/4 of all states have ratified, as the Constitution requires, but there are legal challenges still ahead.

McClellan: We're sort of two prongs in this attack-- the courts and legislation.

Hornung, voice-over: We're just the normal people that just want to support and make sure that the right things get done... [Chuckles] so for ratifications to be ignored is offensive.

Cheng: When Virginia ratified, the next logical move was for the archivist, who at the time is David Ferriero, to just certify the ratification and declare it in the Constitution, and this archivist, in fact, did certify Nevada and Illinois' ratifications, but the Trump administration's Department of Justice wrote a memo saying, the ERA is dead and also that Congress cannot do anything about the status of the ERA.

Because of that memo, the archivist, he didn't do Virginia's ratification.

With the Trump OLC memo to talk about what Congress' authority is is outside of the bounds of what the executive branch does.

I just kind of want to keep pounding the table, saying, "Article V, Article V, Article V."

Carol Jenkins: We fixed the Constitution 27 times, so we know that it wasn't perfect.

It needs to be fixed one more time so that women are not second-class citizens.

Maloney: Equality of rights should be bedrock in the Constitution and not dependent on who's on the Supreme Court or what the majority is or who the president is.

Laws can be rolled back.

They can be not funded, they can be thrown out, but if you're in the Constitution, you're there.

[People chanting indistinctly] Dana Jacobson: We begin this morning with the Supreme Court ending constitutional protections for abortions by overturning "Roe versus Wade."

The court's 5 most conservative justices struck down the nearly-50-year-old ruling.

McClellan: A lot of people didn't believe that a constitutional right could be taken away, and when Roe fell, they saw, "Whoa."

Patti LaBelle: One of these mornings Won't be very long... McClellan: For women's equality to actually happen in the U.S., it will take multiple generations of women demanding that it happen and being vigilant to ensure that it continues.

Even the civil rights movement wasn't, "OK, we done."

Heh!

It's a constant progress, backlash, progress, backlash, progress, backlash.

Women's equality is going to be the same way.

Remember how this country was founded.

It was not built for us.

LaBelle: One of these mornings... McClellan: We have to not only demand a seat at the table, but fight to keep it.

You will look for me And I'll be gone The best advocate I know, my mother Eileen Davis... [Applause] went to the General Assembly in the Commonwealth of Virginia every single year, lugging her suitcase full of materials like a pharma rep to tell people about this Equal Rights Amendment, and she was joined by other Virginians who believed very deeply that they needed to make a change.

Davis: Unless women are prepared to be involved politically, they should be content to be ignored politically.

Does anybody in this room want to be ignored politically?

Crowd: No.

No.

No.

When President Biden was elected, we did a lot of advocacy with them to get them to either overturn that previous OLC memo that declared the ERA dead or to essentially neutralize it, and that's basically what they did, was they issued a new memo saying, "We're not gonna comment about the status of the ERA," and so, essentially, with their new position, they're saying the ball is in Congress' court.

Congress, courts, hear me and hear me well.

We are here to agitate for equality.

We are demanding it without an apology.

We will disrupt the status quo.

We will fight for change.

Let's get it done.

Thank you all.

[Cheering and applause] Woman: Doing it for me There is a history of women of color not having as much support and power as they should have had.

People are ready for women of color to take the lead and to support them and hold them up, and thank God these women have come forward in record numbers.

We've needed that for a very long time.

Today, we reintroduce a resolution to affirm ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Three-fourths of states across the nation have, in fact, ratified the ERA.

Our resolution will help address centuries of gender discrimination in America by removing the unnecessary barriers that have prevented us from enshrining the dignity, the humanity, and equality of women into our United States Constitution.

Cheng: There's new ERA champions in the House right now, with Carolyn Maloney and Jackie Speier stepping down, who've traditionally been the leaders of the cause of the ERA in Congress.

The people who have stepped up to lead the movement are Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, Jennifer McClellan.

McClellan: Black women are taking our rightful place at the front of the movement.

We will not be silenced, and we will not be erased.

We will be part of the history that finishes this story.

We all have a role to play, and when we all work together, we make change.

The citizens come in by building political pressure through protest, through advocacy to make elected officials understand there will be consequences.

It may take a while, but so far in American history, eventually the will of the people wins out.

I still believe in that.

OK.

Off to work.

Gayle King: For the first time, voters in Virginia have chosen a Black woman to serve in Congress.

Her name is Jennifer McClellan.

She won yesterday's special election in the state's fourth congressional district, covering much of southern Virginia.

Reporter: And there's something poetic about her win coming in Virginia's fourth district; Virginia's first Black woman in Congress will represent the former capital of the Confederacy.

Woman: Uh-huh I'm not going [Applause] My great-grandfather had to take a literacy test and find 3 white men to vouch for him to be able to vote.

My great-grandmother never voted.

My father, my grandfather, had to pay poll taxes.

My grandmother's never voted.

My mother didn't vote until after 1965, but now, she voted for her daughter to be in Congress.

When I took my oath of office, I took it on my father's Bible, in which he kept his poll tax receipt.

[Voice shaking] I rise as the newest member of Virginia's fourth congressional district.

[Crowd cheering] Now we're starting to see the tyranny of the political minority thwart the will of the political majority.

Procedure can and is often used to stop legislation, especially if it's something that a majority support.

Politicians, rather than serving the public good and creating policies to help, they are using polarization to increase and to consolidate their own power.

The Constitution is a fossil.

It's the oldest.

It's the hardest to amend in the world.

And it was built to be hard to change.

Foy: The framers, they could not have begun to imagine the world in which we live, and so for us to expect that something that they created 250 years ago would be able to map to our current reality, it's a little insane on our part.

Cheng: We have a choice to make.

There is a fork in the road.

We are a people in a quandary about the present.

We are a people in search of our future.

We are a people in search of a national community.

We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present, but we are attempting to fulfill the promise of America to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal.

[Cheering] [Cheering fades] People want to say the ERA is dead, but I actually think that it's in a good place.

What's happening in Congress is really helpful, which is Congress is actively trying to take steps to remove some of these legal questions to the ERA.

We just have to get this conversation out of any back room on either side of the aisle; that's not a place for an equality conversation to exist.

This conversation should be held loudly in the streets of America.

What do we want?

Equality!

When do we want it?

Now!

If government fails to reflect the will of the people long enough, it's gonna fall.

Cheng: The ERA is a principle.

It's an agreement that everyone deserves equality under the law, regardless of sex, and it's an agreement that we all have to buy into if we are to agree that we live in a healthy, functioning democracy.

[People chanting indistinctly] Background singers: Ooh, in this darkness Please light my way Hornung: Equal Rights Amendment is only the beginning of what this country needs to bring gender equality to the table.

Singers: Ooh McClellan: The ERA is the next step in making true for me and my children and women of color everywhere the words in the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty, and all men and women, like all people, are created equal.

We've had a 401-year struggle of making that true for everybody, and the ERA is just one step.

It's not the end of the fight, but it is an important step in that fight.

What do we want?

ERA!

When do we want it?

Now!

Singers: Ooh, in this darkness Please light my way [Cheering] Foy: I think if we want to be in service to the spirit of what created America, which was to say, "We're gonna "break away from this path, to go in a direction for which there is no path," that is the spirit that we should embrace, rather than the letter of the law, far outside of the context of what we're dealing with today.

Hornung: I think my family has gotten tired of my big, long outlook, but I still have it.

All: ERA!

ERA!

McClellan, voice-over: Either you amend the Constitution to fix a problem or you find another way to solve it.

I don't know if it's possible to amend the Constitution.

Honestly, I don't, but what's the alternative?

I mean, what is the alternative to trying?

There really isn't one.

["This Wild Darkness" by Moby playing] Woman: Ooh Oh, in this darkness Please light my way Light my way, oh Ooh, in this darkness... President Joe Biden: Today, I affirm the Equal Rights Amendment to have cleared all the necessary hurdles to be added to the U.S.

Constitution now.

[Cheering and applause] Woman: Light my way Light my way, oh Background singers: Ooh, in this darkness Woman: In this darkness Background singers: Please light my way Woman: Light my way Singers: Light my way Ooh, in this darkness Woman and singers: Please light my way Woman: Please light my way Singers: Light my way Woman: Out of the darkness Singers: Ooh In this darkness Please light my way Woman: Please light my way Singers: Light my way Woman: Light my way [Singers vocalizing]