- Alice Paul (1885-July 9, 1977), American woman suffrage leader and author of the first Equal Rights Amendment in 1923. She apprenticed as an activist in England with the Pankhurst Suffragettes (1907-1910) and brought their militant tactics back to the lagging U.S., where no state had granted the vote since 1896. She founded the National Woman's Party, and endured beatings, imprisonment, hunger strikes and forcible feeding with her colleagues in both countries. Dr. Paul was a Quaker social worker who devoted much of her youth to grueling slum work and earned six degrees, most in law. She died in a nursing home awaiting ratification by three more states of the ERA, which she saw as the true completion of the franchise, granting women the full rights of the Federal Constitution. Her famous parades and demonstrations renewed interest in "the cause," and with her courage, made her a symbol in the current women's rights movement. On July 9, 1978, 100,000 people marched in Washington in her memory to support the ERA. Most wore the old suffrage colors, purple and white.
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