WomenNC is honored to be featuring Lori Bunton, Co-President of ERA-NC Alliance! 🙌💚
When Lori retired as pharmaceutical director, she focused her energy to working on increasing rights for women in this country including serving on the boards of NC NOW, AAUW ODC, Pro-Choice NC and the ERA-NC Alliance where she has been Co-President for almost 3 years.
Lori is a warrior for women's rights. She says women hold up half the sky and yet we are, at best, only represented in government and businesses at less than a third of the seats. Lori wants to continue to fight for equal pay and bodily autonomy, knowing that our sisters of color are fighting both the battles of racism and sexism. In addition, older women are still one of the largest groups living in poverty due to lifelong wage inequality and giving up paid employment to raise a family. Lori stands for equality for all, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and religion.
The ERA-NC Alliance has spent the last 6+ years working with NCGA legislators to sponsor bills to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in NC. Their goal has been primarily to see NC recognize its over 4.2 million women as equal citizens in the US Constitution. Despite their efforts, none of the bills have made it out of the Rules Committee and been brought to the floor for a vote. They have organized rally's, brought in nationally known speakers such as Eleanor Smeal, founder of NOW and worked with advocates across the state including our 12 lead organizations. Another one of their goals is to continue to educate women and girls across NC that they do not have full equality in the U.S. Constitution. ERA-NC Alliance has held dozens of webinars with organizations across the state educating on the ERA. They have signed on to several Amicus briefs in support of publication of the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment. This year they partnered with international law firm Winston & Strawn to review all the NC laws, regulations and statutes to determine if they are in compliance with the Equal Rights Amendment. Once that process is complete, they'll work with our legislators on next steps.
The ERA-NC Alliance board is made up of people with links to other organizations such as the League of Women Voters NC, the AAUW NC, NOW, etc and they support their efforts by attending and often publicizing their events. Through their monthly newsletters, they champion women and events across the state that will have a positive impact on ALL NC women. They urge their members and interested parties to write to their legislators on matters of importance to women in NC and to show up in person as often as possible. ERA-NC Alliance realizes that without a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women full equality in the US Constitution, laws will be passed or overthrown that don't benefit and may actually harm women and girls. Their number one priority is continuing the fight for the publication of the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment.