Young Activists Push for Equal Rights Amendment

They weren’t sure how long they would block the road. “We had prepared to be there for a week,” Rosie Couture told WMC. “We were fundraising to cover meals and we had a minivan ready with sleeping bags.”

They descended on Constitution Avenue, one of the major thoroughfares cutting across Washington, D.C., during rush hour. They had not requested a permit; instead, they simply assembled outside of the National Archives building — dozens of them, some as young as 14 — and, when the megaphone had been outfitted with fresh batteries and everyone was sufficiently excited, walked into the middle of the street’s eight lanes and unfurled their banner: WE DEMAND #ERANOW, it screamed. PUT US IN THE CONSTITUTION.

It was the start of a day participants described as “really, really awesome,” “really beautiful,” and “very special.”

The occupation of Constitution Avenue was organized by Generation Ratify, a youth-driven group founded by Couture and a group of like-minded friends to push for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Generation Ratify grew out of 19-year-old Couture’s involvement in the campaign to ratify the ERA in Virginia in 2018. “I would walk into different meeting spaces, or go to a protest or something, and I’d be the youngest person by decades,” recalled Couture, the group’s executive director. “Because there wasn’t really an organization or a space that was dedicated to involving young people, hearing us out and empowering [us] to take action for the Equal Rights Amendment, the young people weren't really sticking around.”

“My past experience with other adult organizations is that they don’t really take you seriously,” added Ella Duncan-High, who, at just 18, will soon be the organization’s national organizing director. “There’s not really a space for younger people in a lot of [the] more established, ‘adult’ organizations.”

Five years later, Generation Ratify is holding that space for 13,000 young activists from across the country. They educate young people about the ERA, advocate for the ERA and other feminist legislation, and mobilize young voters to make the ERA a central political issue. They have filed amicus briefs to U.S. Courts of Appeals and organized lobby days on Capitol Hill.

And on July 24, they shut down Constitution Avenue for six hours.

They wore ERA green and purple. They huddled in groups, some making friendship bracelets and others playing cards. They put on disco music, broke out the bucket drums, and danced and chanted together. What do we want? They shouted.ERA! When do we want it? Now! If we don’t get it, shut it down!

“I grew up with two sisters with a single mother,” Mary Ann Montgomery, a 19-year-old who helped Generation Ratify coordinate the streetwide shutdown, explained to WMC. “I’ve witnessed and experienced so many different intersections of discrimination throughout my life. I’m also a sexual assault survivor. I think that you really just need something like the ERA to stop and examine exactly who our government and our popular culture is protecting and neglecting.”

Generation Ratify’s action came almost exactly 100 years after the Equal Rights Amendment was originally unveiled on July 21, 1923. In the century since, the ERA has fulfilled all requirements to be certified — passage by two-thirds of Congress and ratification by 38 states — but in 2020, when Virginia became the much-needed 38th state to ratify, the sitting national archivist at the time, under the instruction of the Trump Department of Justice, refused to publish the ERA into the Constitution, citing an arbitrary deadline for ratification imposed on the ERA in its Congressional preamble. The Department of Justice under President Biden has since given Congress the authority to act on the ERA’s publication.

Generation Ratify made three demands during their occupation: that the national archivist certify and publish the Equal Rights Amendment; that members of Congress join the ERA caucus recently launched by Rep. Cori Bush and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to advance the ERA’s publication; and that legislators across levels of government sign a pledge to recognize that the ERA is the 28th Amendment in the Constitution. (Their ERA Centennial toolkit can be accessed here.)

“We really wanted to show that young people aren’t playing around,” Couture said. “Because we need the ERA now, not tomorrow, not later. We need it now.”

Some 300 passersby who traveled through the occupation were handed a printed zine about the Equal Rights Amendment by Generation Ratify activists outlining its history, where it stands, and how anyone can get involved in the movement for Constitutional equality. “We were canvassing the entire time we were out there,” noted Couture. “We were actively recruiting … and making sure everybody knew what was going on.”

“Someone,” Montgomery, added with a laugh, “was actually working on our press releases out there.”

At 2 p.m., the police approached the group and gave word that they would be making arrests in an hour. After two warnings, most of the activists moved en masse to the side of the road, leaving Couture and Duncan-High seated, “criss-cross applesauce,” on the yellow line where they had just been holding their banner. After a third, “they arrested us,” Duncan-High explained, using zip ties, “and then they took us into their little police truck [with] just a wall separating us.”

While the police bound the two women’s wrists with zip ties, their compatriots stood by, chanting fiercely: We demand ERA! Put us in the Constitution!

Before the protest, Couture had to confirm that her financial aid for college wouldn’t be threatened if she faced charges. “We knew the risk we were taking on,” Couture asserted. “Constitutional equality is just too important, so we were willing to do that.” (Although Couture and Duncan-High were held in jail for several hours, this week they learned that they won’t have to appear in court or face charges.)

The day after they were taken in by police, Couture, Duncan-High, and other Generation Ratify activists reported to the Hill to deliver information on the ERA to Congressional offices and urge members to support the ERA’s ratification by signing the discharge petition for HJ Res 25, the resolution to remove the deadline on the ratification of the ERA; cosponsoring HJ Res 82, the ERA Now resolution to affirm the ERA’s ratification; and joining the ERA Caucus.

In other words: Generation Ratify will not be deterred.

“While we are very legislative focused and policy focused,” Duncan-High explained, “you're going to see a lot more good trouble actions from Generation Ratify to show how tired we are of being so close.”

“We’ll be doing some more visioning,” Montgomery promised. “We are nowhere near done pushing the archivist and Congress to publish and certify the Equal Rights Amendment.”

Note: The full text of the Equal Rights Amendment is:

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 Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.