Pat Spearman (1955-present) is one of the living torchbearers of the Equal Rights Amendment. She may not have started her career fighting for the ERA, but she’s become one of its biggest champions. She fought for Nevada to ratify it, and they did–45 years to the day after Congress first passed the amendment.
Pat Spearman (1955-present) is one of the living torchbearers of the Equal Rights Amendment. She may not have started her career fighting for the ERA, but she’s become one of its biggest champions. She fought for Nevada to ratify it, and they did–45 years to the day after Congress first passed the amendment.
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Hi! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Kate Kelly. This is Womanica.
This month, we’re talking about Innovators. These are women who helped shape the world we live in – from inventors to thinkers, whose decisions to explore new paths lead us to where we are today.
This episode is part of a crossover season with Ordinary Equality, all about the women whose work and activism contributed to the ongoing history of the Equal Rights Amendment. You can head over to that show to hear a longer version of today’s episode and an interview with Pat Spearman herself.
Today we’re talking about one of the living torchbearers of the ERA. She may not have started her career fighting for the ERA, but she’s become one of its biggest champions. She fought for Nevada to ratify it, and they did – 45 years to the day after Congress first passed the amendment.
Let me introduce Senator Pat Spearman.
Pat was born Patricia Ann Spearman in 1955, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her mother was a business school graduate and executive secretary, who later became a traveling evangelist. Her father was a veteran, Tuskegee University graduate, and electrician. They met as members of the Wings Over Jordan Choir, singing in large venues all over the country.
Pat traveled with them – but they were traveling through a deeply racially divided United States. Most venues denied Black people from using the front door, so even the performers had to enter through the back. They’d often bring food and drinks with them, so they didn’t have to patronize segregated, and often dangerous, restaurants or hotels between stops.
In 1962, Pat herself came face-to-face with this reality: she saw a white man drink from one water fountain, and spit in the other. When she went to drink from the one he had, her mother had to stop her from drinking in the white-only fountain, out of fear they’d be targeted. She was only seven years old.
When Pat was a teenager, her family relocated to Alabama, and she became one of the first students to integrate a local high school. She remembers the racist harassments from other students opposed to integration, an experience that continued into her time at Norfolk State University in Virginia. Pat would later say these encounters lit a fire within her to fight back and make a difference.
In college, Pat joined the ROTC and in 1977 joined the army. When she enlisted, the army was unwelcoming to women, and entirely banned gay people from joining. Still, Pat worked in the Military Police Corps of the US for twenty nine years. During that time she became a celebrated lieutenant colonel. At the same time, the ERA, which Pat would later champion, was dwindling in popularity precisely because opponents claimed it would ‘force’ women into military service – the very service Pat had voluntarily entered.
After serving, Pat attended the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. She graduated with a master of divinity and – once again– found herself confronting the racism and sexism of conservatives. When invited to preach, she was often introduced as “the speaker,” rather than her proper title of, “the reverend,” and was even asked to stand away from her proper place at the pulpit.
Pat remained undeterred. In 2005, she moved to Nevada and founded her own church: the Resurrection Faith Community Ministries. She served as pastor.
In 2012, Pat began her political career by challenging Nevada Senator John Jay Lee, a two-term incumbent. He opposed abortion rights and same-sex marriage, issues Pat ardently supported. On the campaign trail, Pat was a force to be reckoned with: the combination of her formal speaking experience with her ardent dedication to equality galvanized voters. She spent one-fifteenth of the money her opponent did on the primary, and won by a margin of 26 percentage points.
Upon her election, Pat became the first openly lesbian legislator in Nevada state history. She prioritized, and continues to support, legislation to promote equality, veterans, and energy: E V E, or “EVE,” as a nod to the first woman in the Bible.
In 2014, the ERA came back to Pat. It fell short of ratification in the 1970s, and a group of women were searching for capable legislators to carry bills in the states that hadn’t yet ratified it. Nevada was one such state, and Pat was one such legislator.
She introduced her first bid at ratification in 2015, but it didn’t make it out of committee.
Ratifying an amendment from the 70s nearly forty years later was a leap in logic for many people. One legislator even told her that the quest made Nevada look like a “laughingstock.” But Pat was determined to ratify the ERA, if only because of its importance to pursuing permanent equality.
Pat reintroduced the bill in 2016, and again the following year. Women’s marches and the growing momentum of the gender equality movement lent the bill much-needed strength. But the bill was coming up against the same arguments: it would force women to lose benefits, and register for the draft.
In the 2017 session, Pat took the floor wearing all-white, a nod to suffragists, and argued for the ERA.
At the end of the session, the ERA had accumulated eight nays and thirteen ayes. Nevada ratified the ERA – the first state to do so in four decades.
Pat continues her fight for equality across all her occupations and titles today. Since Nevada has ratified the ERA, she helped two additional states ratify – Illinois and Virginia. She is currently running for mayor of North Las Vegas.
All month long, we’re talking about innovators.
For more information and pictures of some of the work we’re talking about, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanica
Ordinary Equality is a Wonder Media Network Production. This episode was produced by Maddy Foley, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, and Ale Tejeda.
Thanks to Pat Spearman for sharing her voice and wisdom.
Tune in tomorrow for the voice of another innovator.