Atlanta — From Heavy's Barbecue to the Gold Dome, Through the Storm

When Alice Burke and Nell Richardson rolled into the Atlanta area in 1916, they were met in nearby Decatur — before they even reached the city limits — by a surprise welcoming committee of about 75 local women driving 15 cars. Among them: the wife of the mayor of Atlanta and the president of the state suffrage organization. It happened to be election day in Decatur, and the crowds gathered at the old Courthouse steps were in a highly receptive mood. Local political candidates made speeches on the suffragists' behalf. Alice and Nell then headed into Atlanta for a big meeting that night, a luncheon the next day, and another meeting that evening.

One hundred and ten years later, the Golden Flyer II came to Atlanta through a tornado warning and a blinding snowstorm. The welcome was no less warm.

Augusta had long faded into the distance and Atlanta was an hour and a half away when we decided it was time for lunch. We were in the South. Why not barbecue? Our GPS found Heavy's Barbecue. It took us off the Interstate to a narrow country road. We nearly missed the restaurant. Its sign was from the 50's and faded. The little circular path in front of it was mud, not pavement. Rusty farm equipment adorned its front. The screen door flapped as we entered the dark, low-ceilinged building, and the smell of the real thing rose up to greet us.

As we sat there eating our lunch, we realized that there was no sign for an eatery — or anything else for that matter — out at the Interstate. The only people who had any reason to know about it were the locals. We had entered another world here just south of the Ogeechee River in deeply rural Crawford, Georgia. Lydia and Perry Grant had built the place 47 years ago. Lydia served us the best fall-off-the-bone barbecued pork any of us had ever had anywhere. When we got up to leave, Lydia asked us what had brought us to their door and we told her. Fascinated, she asked for more information and enthusiastically signed the Sign4ERA.org petition. Don't let anyone tell you that rural 

America is allergic to change. Lydia and Perry, like so many other Americans, believe in the American dream: work hard and do good work and you will succeed, if given a chance, if you are treated fairly.

An hour and a half after we left Heavy's Barbecue, we were in the heart of one of the great cities of the New South. That evening, we had dinner with the woman who, to our delight, had agreed to orchestrate our visit to this great city. Sharon J. Hill joined us in the dining room with buttons and ERA NOW round buttons, sharing her stories about working for civil rights, voting and the rights for all women.

She worked with the legendary Senator Cynthia Ann McKinney, who began her career in the Georgia House of Representatives in 1988, and then went on to become the first African-American woman from Georgia to be elected to the U.S. Congress. Hill recalled that it was while she worked with McKinney in Washington that, over the years, she found herself working ever more closely with the National Women's Political Caucus and then the National Black Women's Political Leadership Caucus, a DC-based organization dedicated to empowering African-American women in politics. She then went on to join the board of trustees. It was at that point that she threw herself into what was to become her life's work, carefully studying the careers and thoughts of civil rights and feminist activist Dorothy Height and the many other women who had come before her. She emerged determined to devote her own career to the unfinished business those women had begun. And she made a commitment to do everything she can to make the ERA a part of both the Georgia Constitution and the U.S. Constitution.

Affirming the validity of the ERA has been an uphill battle in Georgia. Six states have passed resolutions to affirm that the ERA is valid, but Georgia is not one of them, notwithstanding the fact that the voters of Georgia had made it plain that they support the amendment. This is the second year that joint resolutions have been filed in the Georgia General Assembly to affirm that the ERA has been ratified and adopted, but the sponsors, Senator Sally Harrell and Representative Lisa Campbell, do not expect the bill to make it past the second reading. But they will not stop trying.

Representative Campbell signed the Sign4ERA.org petition to the U.S. Congress to affirm the ERA is in the U.S. Constitution while sitting in the Saxon, saying "We can do this. We will do this." Before we left the capitol, we met several other supporters of the ERA. One of them, Senator Derrick Jackson, is running for Governor. We'll see what happens next. Later in the morning, Jeryl presented an ERA Champion Award to Rep. Campbell for her unwavering support of the ERA.

The morning we spent in the State House with members of the legislature was memorable not just for the opportunities we had to engage with state legislators about the congressional Joint Resolution and Sign4ERA petition. We had awakened that morning to a warning that a massive front a hundred miles long or more was headed straight for Atlanta. The forecast spoke of a high likelihood of tornadoes, hail, high winds and heavy rain. Getting to the event, we avoided the tornadoes and hail, but got 70 mile-an-hour winds, continuous lightning, the roar of thunder and great gales of rain. Your intrepid team got the Saxon to the State House, completed our agenda and then drove two hours through a blinding snowstorm to Knoxville, Tennessee for our next engagement, while the temperature plummeted by 30 degrees.