Video

On August 26, 1970--Women's Day--women's rights advocates staged marches and rallies across the nation in honor of the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote. Here, hundreds of women are heard chanting a feminist slogan as they march up Fifth Avenue in New York. The women's rights movement experienced a tremendous resurgence in the 1960s and 1970s, with feminists staging protests and demonstrations, engaging in grassroots organizing, and lobbying Congress in pursuit of their goal of attaining equal employment opportunities for women and the right to legalized abortion. The National Organization for Women (NOW), founded in 1966, spearheaded efforts to win congressional passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was to provide for the legal equality of the sexes and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. The amendment was passed by Congress in 1972 but failed to achieve the necessary state ratification. However, the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy, was hailed as a major victory for the women's liberation movement. This clip is courtesy of THE HISTORY CHANNEL.