Nation: ERA Marches On To Another Loss

It falls two votes short

A dozen cheerleaders stamped their white boots and chanted: "Ratify the ERA, we shall not be moved!" Familiar feminist leaders—Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem noteworthy among them—led some 50,000 men, women and children, most wearing white, to symbolize their spiritual ties with the suffragists,* down Chicago's Columbus Drive and into Grant Park. There the crowd cheered heartily as Mayor Jane Byrne declared, "It's time that we women of Illinois were looking at the legislature and saying, 'Why not?' "

It was one of the largest rallies ever for the Equal Rights Amendment. Since the ERA was...

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