Proclamations, Bollards, and a Broadway Musical That Knows Exactly What It's About

The Golden Flyer II pulled up to the Greensboro History Museum — a magnificent Romanesque Revival building that began its life as a Presbyterian church in 1892 — on a beautiful, sunny morning that felt like the campaign had finally found its weather.

Barbara Carter, local ERA activist and League of Women Voters member, was already there when the team arrived, clipboard in hand, collecting signatures for the Sign4ERA.org petition. Which is exactly the point: you don't need to be part of the tour to advance this cause. Anyone can pick up a clipboard. Anyone can ask their neighbors to sign. Barbara Carter knows that.

Audrey Muck, co-president of the ERA-NC Alliance, opened with a historical reminder that landed with a laugh: North Carolina did not ratify the 19th Amendment until 1971. "We're really hoping," she said, "it doesn't take North Carolina another 50 years to join the party this time."

Greensboro Mayor Marikay Abuzuaiter brought the house down with a comparison that nobody in the crowd was going to forget. Alice and Nell, she said, reminded her of Thelma and Louise — "not the criminal part, but I'm sure they were looked at as criminals because they were doing something that no one had done before." She connected the century-old journey to the road still ahead, reminding the crowd that progress must be measured honestly — how far we've come, and how far we still need to go. She noted that Greensboro itself passed Resolution 19-0113 in 2019, formally urging the NC General Assembly to ratify the ERA.

And then she made it official. Mayor Abuzuaiter issued an Official Proclamation declaring March 10, 2026 to be “Driving the Vote for Equality Day” in Greensboro. Not a gesture. A proclamation. It's on the record.

Lena Murrill-Chapman, President of North Carolina AAUW and a museum board member, spoke with the fervor of someone who has been waiting a long time for exactly this moment. "Lots of things go on here," she said, "but nothing that is more important than is happening at this moment. I am proud to be among a group of people who understand that freedom is not free." She challenged everyone in the room to reach out to younger women and carry the message forward. "We are speaking up and speaking out because we will not stop until we get the job done."

Tracy Clark, North Carolina House Representative and mother of two daughters, laid out the legislative reality: she is a co-sponsor of H500, the bill in the NC House to ratify the ERA. Ninety-six percent of Democrats in the NC House and Senate have signed on. The bill is expected to die in committee — again — until pro-ERA representatives win a majority. That's not a reason to stop. It's a reason to organize.

Mary Ann Gorman gave the crowd its marching orders: sign the Sign4ERA.org petition, take clipboards to local events — especially the upcoming No Kings Day on March 28th— and if you want to be a local organizer, email us. Three concrete actions. No excuses.

Kathy Bonk noted that the US Conference of Mayors passed a strong resolution in 2019 committing to do all they can to advance the ERA — which is why mayors across the country have been stepping up at every stop on this tour. She presented Mayor Abuzuaiter with an ERA Champion Award in recognition of Greensboro's leadership, and the mayor signed the Sign4ERA.org petition to make it official.

Andrea Graham, on her way out, asked for a handful of petitions and expressed the frustration of someone who has been in this fight long enough to know what's at stake. "If they keep going the way they're going," she said of women who don't recognize the urgency, "they'll find they won't be voting in the future." She left with petitions. She'll be back with signatures.

From Greensboro the team headed to Charlotte — and into one of the more memorable parking situations of the entire journey.

The Golden Flyer II was destined for a spot in front of the Belk Theatre at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, where the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Suffs was playing to packed houses. The theater had suggested a parking area. A film crew had other ideas. After considerable negotiation, creative navigation of one-way streets, and the discovery that the bollard posts in front of the theater could not be unlocked — the lock submerged in what Jeryl Schriever charitably described as "an inky black puddle of muck" — a solution was found.

Every inch counted — threading the Golden Flyer II through the Charlotte bollards without a scratch, because the ERA isn't the only thing that deserves to come through intact.

Through all of it, Sergeant J.D. Williams of the Charlotte Police stayed right with the Golden Flyer II and its crew-- patient and determined, until the problem was solved. The decorative top of one bollard was removed, providing an extra inch and a half of clearance. Susan Nourse threaded the Golden Flyer II through the gap while Peter Brown pushed the left rear fender just enough to clear without scraping the paint. Sergeant Williams, we salute you. It's impossible until it's done.

Once parked, theatregoers formed a line. One gentleman asked how much it cost to get into the car. Another wanted to know where to sign. Jeryl told the stories of Alice and Nell to the curious crowds gathering around the Saxon, and stickers, ERA information, and copies of Ms. Magazine went out the door.

Inside the theatre, Jeryl, Susan, and Kathy Bonk — in full suffrage costume — worked the crowd during intermission, handing out Sign4ERA flyers and stickers. The response was nearly universal gratitude, especially once people connected Alice Paul, author of the ERA, to the Alice Paul on stage in Suffs.

For those who haven't seen it: Suffs is a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical by Shaina Taub that chronicles the final seven years of the suffrage movement — 1913 to 1920. It doesn't sanitize the history. It shows the rift between Carrie Chapman Catt's traditional lobbying approach and Alice Paul's radical public protest. It centers the voices of Black suffragists like Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell, who were sidelined and excluded by white leadership in ways the movement is still reckoning with.

The Charlotte audience was fully engaged throughout — steady applause at the musical numbers, particular electricity around Ida B. Wells demanding to know when white women would stop asking her to wait her turn, and real crowd energy for the songs skewering discrimination and misogyny with wit sharp enough to draw blood.

But the moment that resonated most deeply with this particular audience — the one that had spent the day collecting petition signatures and threading a century-old Saxon roadster through a bollard gap — was the finale: Keep Marching. Its central message: progress is possible, but it is not guaranteed. 

The show ends with Alice Paul winning suffrage — and immediately insisting the fight isn't over. That the ERA is the next step. The audience rose to its feet. Outside, the Golden Flyer II was waiting — parked exactly where it belonged, in front of a theater full of people who now understood, viscerally, why Driving the Vote for Equality is on the road.