Gov. Martinez and Mayor Berry have issued Women’s Equality Day Proclamations for 2013

Contacts:
Sylvia M. Ramos, M.D., Chair, Feminist Caucus HSNM
feministcaucushsnm@hotmail.com
505-401-0601

Zelda Gatuskin, President, Humanist Society of New Mexico
president@humanistsocietyofnm.org
505-344-6102

HUMANIST SOCIETY OF NEW MEXICO
P.O. Box 27293, Albuquerque, NM 87125-7293
humanistsocietyofnm.org

For Immediate Release

(Albuquerque, NM, Aug. 19, 2013)—The Humanist Society of New Mexico and a coalition of nonprofit community organizations will be celebrating Women’s Equality Day in Tiguex Park on Sunday, Aug. 25 from 1-3 PM. This free, family-friendly event will highlight the strides women have made toward equality and the work still to be done. Also included will be a call for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Attendees are encouraged to come in period costume from the days of the Suffragettes in the 1920s or the second wave of the ERA effort in the 1970s.

Details can be found here.

At the request of HSNM and our partner organizations, both Gov. Susana Martinez and Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry issued Women’s Equality Day Proclamations for 2013. Annabelle Romero of the COA Human Rights Office will be representing Mayor Berry at the event, which will feature a program of short remarks by community leaders and women’s rights activists, poetry and musical entertainment. There will also be an arts tent and poster display, spaces where the public may meet and greet feminists from the 1970s ERA campaign, elected officials and community leaders, and face-painting for children. Confirmed speakers and performers include radio personality Martha Burk, State Sen. Jacob Candelaria and Albuquerque’s first Poet Laureate Hakim Bellamy.

We are joined in this effort by, among others, the League of Women Voters of Central New Mexico, the Southwest Women’s Law Center, Albuquerque Progressive Women, Progress Now New Mexico, the YWCA, the National Organization for Women of Santa Fe, Freedom from Religion-Albuquerque, Equality New Mexico and the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice.

In 1971 the U.S. Congress proclaimed Aug. 26 Women’s Equality Day to commemorate the date in 1920 when the 19th Amendment to our Constitution guaranteed a women’s right to vote. Soon after achieving this victory, the women’s movement went to work on an amendment that would guarantee women the same rights guaranteed men since the signing of our Constitution. In 1923, Alice Paul introduced a new amendment, which was introduced in every session of Congress until it passed in 1972. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that was finally passed and sent to the states for ratification reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” Thirty-five of the required 38 states ratified the ERA in the brief timeframe for passage imposed by Congress. Efforts to pass the ERA have continued ever since, including a strategy, known as the three-state strategy, to have Congress revoke their deadline so that the process of state ratification can go forward to add the three remaining states, instead of starting over in all of the states.