Activists arrested in a dramatic protest to pressure President to publish the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) before leaving office in less than a week, as well as organizers of the protest, will be our guests on Joy of Resistance this Thursday.

On January 10, 2025, 6 people (4 women and 2 men) were arrested in front of the National Archives in Washington, DC for hanging a giant vertical banner between the pillars of the facade of the National Archives building, that featured a picture of President Biden, with words above that read PUBLISH THE ERA and below that read HERO OR ZERO. The women were dressed as the Sisterhood of the Dune Science Fiction epic.

The event marked the culmination of months of activism urging President Joe Biden to publish the ERA as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution before leaving office. 

The "ERA 6" are currently facing charges of unlawful entry and 2nd-degree theft, despite no banners being removed from the property, no attempt to enter the National Archives building, and the original banner being reinstalled within minutes of the action.

In a giant show of force by the Washington, DC police, 37 people were detained and six arrested and held overnight in a badly roach infested steel cell in DC’s central cell block and released on the evening of January 11--fittingly, Alice Paul’s birthday.

Alice Paul introduced the Equal Rights Amendment to Congress in 1923, 101 years ago, as the next step for women after they'd won the right to vote in 1920 after a 75 year struggle.

The amendment 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” and further that “the Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

The Amendment got no traction until the feminist movement of the 1970's, when it passed through both houses of Congress with the required 3/4 of state legislatures majority and was quickly ratified by 35 of the 38 states needed to ratify. But in the mid-70's a right wing backlash against all things progressive arose, and the amendment stalled. At that point a time limit for ratification was arbitrarily assigned to it.

After the time limit, the 3 other needed state ratifications were added, with Virginia, the last needed state, ratifying in 2020. Since then, Conservatives and their Courts fhave claimed the ERA is dead because of the time limit and a host of other scholars and authorities have claimed that because the time limit was not part of the text of the Amendment and time limits are not mentioned in the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which describes the process for amendments becoming law), that all requirements have been met and all that is left is for the National Archivist to publish the Amendment, to make it the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This position is now backed by the American Bar Association (the nation's largest lawyers group), the American Constitution Society, The League of Women Voters, Attorneys General of 23 states, 122 US Congress Representatives, 45 Senators (led by NYS Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has led over 300 organizations on the current campaign to get President Biden to publish the ERA before he leaves office.

 Acclaimed women's rights Attorney Wendy Murphy has recounted that in her many years of lawyering for women, she has run into many situations where she won her case, but couldn't get the law enforced because, as judges themselves indicated, there is no legal 'floor' under women in our Consitution, 85 % !of countries have such a constitutional guarantee, but the United States does not!

This program will include a feminist update and timely music.