🟢 Come join the festivities on Friday, May 15th, at Noon in front of the Capitol! A Meet & Greet kicks off at 12 PM with music, a Special Program/Press Conference; then a stroll over to the MN Suffrage Memorial with time for photo ops! WEAR WHITE.
🟢 After this event, the Golden Flyer II will tootle on down the road to Rice Park – the very spot where, in 1914, Suffragists gathered to garner support for the 19th Amendment – the women’s right to vote! (Photo above.) At Rice Park, a Reception will commence hosted by our partners the League of Women Voters MN (LWVMN) & the American Association of University Women (AAUW MN). All are welcome, so feel free to pass along this information to friends, networks and family. Before and after each program, you can visit the Golden Flyer II, the same car used by Suffragists 112 years ago when they visited Minnesota.
FYI: The Tour launched on March 1 in New York City for Women’s History Month and has traveled through the southern United States, and then it will swing north. You can track progress, including a Daily Diary on each stop, background on the ERA, and more: DrivingTheVote.org. Read more about the Tour here: Ms. Magazine.
BACKGROUND: In 1916, two suffragists, Alice Burke and Nell Richardson, drove 10,700 miles across the country in a bright yellow Saxon automobile named the Golden Flyer. They were the first women to crisscross the United States by car. It was at a time when the federal suffrage amendment was stalled, just as the ERA is stalled today. In part because of their efforts and those of 1000s of others, the suffrage movement regained political momentum. Women won the right to vote in 1920!
The ERA is needed more than ever to halt the backlash on gender equality, including fighting to keep the right to vote in light of efforts like the SAVE Act and rollbacks in the Voting Rights Act, creating barriers to women and people of color voting in the next election. We need constitutional equality in states and nationally to prevent sex discrimination – particularly around new trends and technologies – including stronger protections against wage inequality, sexual violence, pregnancy discrimination, and legislation like the Artificial Intelligence Civil Rights Act.
For more background, take a moment to read this post by Pat Mitchell, former President of PBS and longtime feminist activist talking about the ERA, democracy, and why focus on Congress is so important: The Road to the ERA Runs through Congress.