Women's Forum Oral History Collection

The Women's Forum series of the North Carolina Women's Oral History Project, consisting of over 25 hours of interviews with 26 interviewees, was started in 2017 by Dr. Daniel Fountain of the History, Political Science, and International Studies Department of Meredith College. The series documents the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in North Carolina by members of the Women's Forum of North Carolina. The bulk of the interviews were conducted in the summer of 2017 by students Morgan Johnson ('20) and Miranda Pikaart ('18). The project continued into the 2017-2018 school year. Johnson and Pikaart completed early transcriptions of the interviews, and additional transcription work was completed by Meredith students Dominique Bateman ('19) and Wahalyn Francis ('25), and Women's Forum member Jenny McEntire.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed Constitutional Amendment. Its first section reads...

Women shall have equal rights in the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

The ERA was first proposed to Congress in 1923 following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Activists who had contributed to the suffrage movement, such as Alice Paul, felt that suffrage alone was not enough and that women needed further protection under the law.

The Amendment was long lost in Congressional committees until 1972, when, bolstered by second-wave feminism movements of the 1960s and 1970s, both houses of Congress approved the amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. Three-fourths of the states had to ratify the amendment before 1979, a deadline which was eventually extended to 1982. Despite the deadline extension, only 35 of the 38 needed states ratified the amendment before the 1982 deadline. Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia have ratified the amendment after the fact, adding up to the required 38, leading some ERA activists to believe the Amendment could theoretically still be eligible to be added to the Constitution. The North Carolina legislature voted on the ERA several times during the initial movement, and failed to ratify it each time by only a handful of votes.

The North Carolina Women's Forum is a nonpartisan organization established in 1976 that promotes women's leadership and public involvement. At its inception, a major goal of the group was the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Many members of the Women’s Forum, both past and present, were heavily involved in the campaign for the ERA, leading other organizations dedicated to the cause, working for politicians and leaders who supported the amendment, and participating in debates, demonstrations, and marches. This series of interviews details the contributions of 26 of these women to the ratification movement.

Read more about the ERA here.

Read more about the North Carolina Women’s Forum here.