“Gaily Forward for the ERA”: I love this flyer aimed at gay men and lesbians promoting a 1980 rally for ERA ratification in Chicago’s Grant Park. Found it in a box of unprocessed ephemera at @GerberHart while researching Queer Clout. /1 
What's striking is the detailed argument that the ERA matters for lesbians and gay men both separately and together. /2
Not just “Homophobia and sexism are two symptoms of the same disease” and “we must confront sexism as an issue within our own community as well as on the outside.” But also specific arguments tailored to address gay men and lesbians specifically. /3
To gay men, it calls for allyship, and also argues that gay men’s fate is linked to that of both lesbians and “all women.” /4
To lesbians (and implicitly straight feminists too), it argues that lesbian visibility matters: that they should be out about “our heritage of leadership” within the women’s movement. /5
You would not have seen this language five years earlier. In Chicago, there was still serious debate as late as 1975 over whether or not lesbians and gay men should hold their annual pride march or parade jointly on the same date. /6
I argued in Queer Clout, “the gendered conflicts of the 1970s helped set the terms for a crucial shift: the wide adoption of the notion of a ‘gay and lesbian’ community served by joint institutions” (p149). upenn.edu/pennpress/book… /7
“After experimenting with mobilizing separately and together, an influential subset of politicized gay men and lesbians decided by the late 1970s that they did share a common set of interests” (p151) /8
The rally was huge: 20K+ people calling on the Illinois legislature to ratify the ERA, which it had voted down 10 times. Mayor Jane Byrne, the first woman elected mayor of a major US city, spoke. /9
Folks chanted “One two three four, we need three more. Five six seven eight, ratify in every state.” 35 states had ratified the amendment; 38 were needed. The Tribune reported on the very diverse array of groups joining, including the Illinois Gay Rights Task Force. /10
The Tribune ran a pic of these steelworkers’ signs /11
Here’s an AP photo of Bella Abzug, Phil Donahue, and Marlo Thomas onstage /12
And another of John B. Anderson, the independent presidential candidate and former Illinois congressman, arriving /13
This woman's hat has a leftover presidential campaign button for Minnesota liberal Eugene McCarthy--and another for the 1976 presidential campaign of Lester Maddox, the Georgia segregationist. Tribune pic /14
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