227 “Stop ERA” Protest

“Stop ERA” Protest (1977)

Warren K. Leffler, Demonstrators opposed to the ERA in front of the White House, 1977, via Library of Congress.

In the 1970s, conservative Americans defeated the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). With high approval ratings, the ERA–which declared, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex”—seemed destined to pass swiftly through state legislatures and become the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, but conservative opposition stopped the Amendment just short of ratification.