Driving the Vote for Equality: ERA Dispatches From Arizona and California

More than a century after suffragists Alice Burke and Nell Richardson launched their 1916 cross-country campaign for women’s voting rights, the modern Driving the Vote for Equality tour is again carrying the fight for constitutional equality across America.

This month, the Golden Flyer II traveled through Arizona and California—places shaped by immigration, labor struggles, border politics and widening political divides.

In Phoenix and Tucson, speakers emphasized that the ERA is not some abstract constitutional debate disconnected from everyday life, but something women and marginalized communities can rely on: equal protection under the law at a moment when hard-fought rights increasingly feel precarious.

When the Golden Flyer II rolled up to the offices of Ms. magazine in Los Angeles, advocates, lawmakers and supporters gathered around the bright yellow roadster to connect the unfinished work of suffrage to today’s political landscape. Carolyn Maloney warned that women’s rights are being “bulldozed over” through attacks on abortion access, voting rights and equal employment protections, while Rep. Maxine Waters urged activists to “keep pushing” Congress to recognize the ERA as the 28th Amendment.

Again and again, participants returned to the same conclusion: Progress has never arrived easily. It has always been built through years of grassroots organizing, coalition-building and persistence in the face of backlash.

The tour heads next to Chicago, South Bend and Lansing.

The post Driving the Vote for Equality: ERA Dispatches From Arizona and California appeared first on Ms. Magazine.