ERA-NC Alliance to stand vigil June 29-30 in D.C.
to protest AG Garland’s inaction on women’s rights
Washington, D.C. — Frustrated by Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden’s inaction on the long-awaited Equal Rights Amendment, members of the ERA-NC Alliance will stand vigil June 29 and 30 as Silent Sentinels outside the Department of Justice in protest. National organizers Equal Means Equal, which began the vigil June 10, have vowed to continue until Garland and Biden act on the ERA. Advocates nationwide have joined the vigil.
Garland has failed to order National Archivist David Ferriero to accept Virginia’s ratification of the ERA and to publish the ERA as the 28th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The ERA met all constitutional requirements to become an amendment when Virginia became the 38th and final state necessary to ratify. Two weeks before Virginia ratified in January 2020, then-AG Bill Barr issued an opinion to Ferriero to not accept the ratification and to not publish the 28th Amendment.
Garland has failed to rescind Barr’s opinion.
“Despite calling the ERA a top priority during their campaign, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have failed to keep their promises to America’s women,” said Alliance co-president Jimmie Cochran Pratt.
“Biden and Harris have, so far, done nothing but offer hollow words to equal rights for women,” added co-president Lori Bunton. “We call upon them to honor their commitment to 52 percent of this nation.”
Silent Sentinels pay homage to the suffragists of the early 1900s, who picketed President Woodrow Wilson with banners declaring, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty.” Like Biden, Wilson paid only lip service to women’s rights until negative publicity from hunger strikes forced his hand.
The ERA-NC Alliance is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization with a single mission of ratifying the ERA in North Carolina and working until the ERA becomes the 28th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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BACKGROUND
The Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in 1923. It was adopted by the U.S. House on Oct. 12, 1971, as a joint resolution, which was then adopted by the Senate on March 22, 1972. Under the U.S. Constitution, three-fourths of the states (38) are required to approve the resolution to accept it as an amendment. Thirty-five states passed the ERA before the seven-year deadline of March 22, 1979. In 1978, Congress extended the deadline to June 30, 1982. Since then, three more states (Nevada in 2017, Illinois in 2018, and Virginia in 2020) have voted to approve ratification. After Virginia’s vote, National Archivist David Ferriero refused to accept Virginia’s ratification and failed to publish the amendment.
North Carolina has passed neither a state ERA nor the proposed Constitutional amendment. At least 25 states have adopted their own laws providing that equal rights under the law shall not be denied because of sex. Without the ERA, there is no constitutional standard for applying various state laws that affect women.
FULL TEXT OF THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
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