Press Release - The ERA Coalition Launches “It’s Our Era: Claim the 28th Amendment” on Women’s Equality Day

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: vochoa@eracoalition.org

Washington, DC — August 26, 2025 — Today, on Women’s Equality Day, the ERA Coalition launches “It’s Our Era: Claim the 28th Amendment”, a nationwide public awareness campaign to educate, engage, organize, and mobilize communities around the recognition and implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

While the ERA has been ratified, widespread public awareness and recognition remain limited. The campaign seeks to inspire people in the United States to internalize the ERA’s validity and “claim” it — emphasizing that the 28th Amendment is already part of the Constitution and belongs to all of us.

The It’s Our Era: Claim the 28th Amendment campaign is built on four pillars: Educate, Engage, Organize, and Mobilize.

• Educate: Raise public awareness that the ERA has been ratified, clarify its impact on everyday life, address myths, and explain the current legal status and next steps for recognition.
  
• Engage: Provide information and discussion through the campaign website, local events, town halls, opinion pieces, art contests, and media outreach to build public support.
  
• Organize: Expand the movement through a national network of hundreds of partners and thousands of advocates, using coordinated strategy meetings, social media, and newsletters to recruit supporters.
  
• Mobilize: Activate supporters with online and in-person events, state-level initiatives, and advocacy campaigns to ensure the ERA is recognized, claimed, and implemented nationwide.

“It’s time to set the record straight,” said Zakiya Thomas, President and CEO of the ERA Coalition“. The ERA is here. It is ours. No one can take it away. Our campaign is about ensuring every community understands, celebrates, and mobilizes around gender equality and the 28th Amendment.”

“On Women's Equality Day, we stand firm in claiming what is rightfully ours — the Equal Rights Amendment as our Constitution's 28th Amendment. For 132 years, National Council of Jewish Women has worked toward the fundamental truth that gender equality must rise beyond our aspiration to a legal guarantee protecting women from discrimination. The launch of 'It's our Era' echoes our Jewish tradition's call to pursue justice, ensuring constitutional equality becomes a reality for all those marginalized because of their gender identity — including women, girls, and LGBTQ+ Americans. Now is our moment to honor the women who worked to bring the ERA past the constitutional amendment threshold, claim these earned protections, and build a future where every person can thrive with dignity and equality under the law.” Sheila Katz, CEO of National Council of Jewish Women

“On Women’s Equality Day, we honor the generations of women who have fought for justice and equality—while recognizing that the promise of equal opportunity remains unfulfilled in 2025. The 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote, was a landmark achievement. Yet today, our rights remain under attack. From new voter suppression tactics targeting women and communities of color, to threats to repeal the 19th Amendment, to rising authoritarianism in our streets—our democracy is still at risk. As President and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and National Convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable, I stand with Black women who have long led the fight for civil rights, voting rights, economic justice, and more—even as our own voting rights are targeted. This Women’s Equality Day, we recommit to action: affirming the Equal Rights Amendment, protecting the right to vote, advancing economic opportunity, ending gender and racial discrimination, closing health disparities, and building a more just and inclusive democracy—for all of us”. Melanie Campbell, President and CEO, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and National Convenor, the Black Women's Roundtable

“Progress isn’t permanent unless we make it so.  On Women’s Equality Day, let’s turn temporary wins into lasting rights. The U.S. still lacks a constitutional guarantee of gender equality. It’s time to codify the ERA and anchor equality in law for every generation to come”. Mona Sinha, President, Equality Now

"Women in the US continue to battle systematic discrimination in the form of unequal pay, workplace harassment, pregnancy discrimination, domestic violence, limited access to comprehensive health care, and more. Meanwhile, the ERA is the only duly ratified constitutional amendment not to be added to the Constitution. The need to enshrine the ERA in the Constitution could not be more urgent. We must do it now." Celina Stewart, Esq., CEO, League of Women Voters of the United States

“We approach Women’s Equality Day 2025, August 26th, -- the anniversary of the 19th amendment’s recognition of women’s right to vote with a renewed commitment to strengthen women’s equal rights in the face of new and evolving challenges. A fully ratified Equal Rights Amendment, the 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, is embraced by women’s rights activists but awaits affirmation by Congress. Suffragist leader Alice Paul recognized that women’s right to vote could be fragile and proposed the ERA as reinforcement. We are very close to achieving that guarantee of equality of rights under the law  -- thanks to the millions of equality advocates who have worked for the Equal Rights Amendment for more than a century.” -Kim Villanueva, President, National Organization for Women

“The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is the unfinished business that our foremothers fought for at the inception of Women’s Equality Day. Now, more than ever, as we are experiencing rights being stripped away from women, LGBTQI+ individuals, folks with disabilities, immigrants and people of color, we all must stand together to make equal rights for all an everyday occurrence - not just a symbolic gesture for a day, a week, or for one month a year.” Betty Folliard, Founder ERA Minessota

As we mark Women’s Equality Day 2025, “It’s Our Era: Claim the 28th” calls on every individual, community, and organization to recognize that gender equality is not a distant aspiration — it is a constitutional right. The Equal Rights Amendment is here, it is ours, and together we must ensure it is understood, recognized, celebrated, and fully implemented. This campaign is more than a commemoration; it is a movement to claim justice, protect freedoms, and build a future where sex equality under the law is real, tangible, and enduring for all.

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The ERA Coalition is a movement of movements, comprising over 300 partner organizations nationwide, and representing 80 million individuals. We advocate for transformative change and spearhead both community and political movements aimed at securing Constitutional recognition. We increase public understanding of the need for codifying the equal treatment of people on the basis of sex in the Constitution, and the need to end sex inequality in all its forms. This is what unites us all.