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This Sunday, March 22, is the anniversary of the U.S. Senate's passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a constitutional amendment that would have ensured equal rights could not be denied on the basis of gender.

Though the amendment was passed by Congress in 1972, it was not ratified by enough states by its July 1982 deadline. Amendments to the Constitution are proposed by a two-thirds majority vote in both houses in Congress and then require ratification, or approval, by three-fourths of the states.

The ERA was written by Alice Paul, a women's rights activist who was instrumental in the 1920 ratification of the 19th amendment, which guaranteed women's right to vote. The ERA was first introduced in Congress in 1923, and has been re-introduced in nearly every session of Congress since then.

Alice Paul's home in Washington D.C. has been the headquarters of the National Women's Party for decades and also the Sewell-Belmont House and Museum, the only museum in the nation's capitol that focuses on women's struggle for full equality.

The museum has a large collection of artifacts from the women's movement, including a searchable online database.  It provides tours and is open to the public five days a week.

On March 16, 1870, Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels became the first African American to give a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In his speech, Revels urged Congress to pressure the Georgia General Assembly to reinstate Black state legislators who had been illegally denied their seats.

In April 1868, Georgia voters ratified a new state constitution, which gave African Americans in Georgia full citizenship, including the right to vote. Voters also elected 29 African Americans to the state House of Representatives and three to the state Senate. However, when the Georgia legislature met in July, members of both houses tried to unseat the Black members by arguing that the state constitution did not permit Black representation.

When Black Georgians asked Congress to intervene, Revels insisted that Congress support the Black legislators: "I remarked that I rose to plead for protection for the defenseless race that now send their delegation to the seat of Government to sue for that which this Congress alone can secure to them. And here let me say further, that the people of the North owe to the colored race a deep obligation that is no easy matter to fulfill."

The Mississippi state legislature appointed Revels to the Senate seat in 1870 after it was vacated by a former secessionist supporter. Revels was assigned to the Committee on the District of Columbia, where he argued against an effort to keep the schools of Washington, D.C., segregated. Revels also supported Black workers who had been excluded from working at the Washington Navy Yard based on their race.

After his term ended in 1871, Revels became the first president of Alcorn University in Mississippi and was a pastor at a church in Holly Springs, Miss.

Read Revels' full speech (PDF)

Every year, students across the country celebrate Black History Month in a variety of ways, but a few states have passed laws that require public schools to include Black history in their curriculum throughout the year.

New Jersey, Illinois and New York have each created a commission to review how public schools in the state are teaching Black history and make recommendations on how to improve the curriculum. The commissions are called "Amistad Commissions" after the Amistad, a Spanish slave ship that was the site of a famous slave revolt in 1839.

One of the goals of the New Jersey commission is "to infuse the history of Africans and African-Americans into the social studies curriculum in order to provide an accurate, complete and inclusive history." It has developed a set of lesson plans which teachers will incorporate into their classrooms starting this fall.

However, four years after its law passed, New York has not yet appointed all its commissioners and the commission has never met.

California, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas, Colorado and Michigan have also passed legislation regarding instruction in Black history. Florida's law, passed in 1994, also requires that its public schools teach women's history, Latino history, and the Holocaust.

Movies and music can be powerful reflections of our times, past and present, and tell stories that inform and empower millions of people in ways other media cannot.  This week, we highlight four Oscar-nominated films that have found compelling ways to tell stories about civil and human rights.  The Oscars will be shown on TV this Sunday, February 22.

A film about a man who witnessed the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King has been nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject at this year's Oscars.

"The Witness from the Balcony of Room 306," directed by Adam Pertofsky, tells the story of the final days of King's life through the eyes of Rev. Samuel "Billy" Kyles, a close friend who was with King when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.  Kyles reflects on King's life, the legacy of the civil rights movement, and what led King to work in Memphis.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

At the time of the NAACP's formation, lynching of Black people in the United States was common and a number of race riots where White people attacked Black people and burned their homes had broken out around the country.   A race riot in Springfield, Ill., in the summer of 1908, that resulted in the death of seven people highlighted the growing need for a civil rights organization. 

In the wake of the Springfield riot, 60 prominent Americans, black and white, came together in New York and signed a declaration called "The Call" on February 12, 1909.  The date was chosen because it was Lincoln's 100th birthday and the group felt that the day "should be one of taking stock of the nation's progress since 1865 [when slavery was abolished]."

Since its founding, the NAACP has been at the forefront of racial and economic justice, playing a major role in the transformation of the U.S. from Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, to the passage of major civil rights laws that ended legal segregation in the South.

Read the history of the NAACP early years written by co-founder Mary White Ovington.