Alice Paul in the context of "Nonviolent resistance"

The National Woman's Party (NWP) was an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NWP advocated for other issues including the Equal Rights Amendment. The most prominent leader of the National Woman's Party was Alice Paul, and its most notable event was the 1917–1919 Silent Sentinels vigil outside the gates of the White House.

On January 1, 2021, NWP ceased operations as an independent non-profit organization and assigned its trademark rights and other uses of the party's name to the educational non-profit, Alice Paul Institute. The Alice Paul Institute has invited three members of NWP Board of Directors to join their board and in the near future will create a new committee to "advise on a potential expansion of programs to the Washington, DC area and nationally". The papers and artifacts of the NWP, were donated to the Library of Congress and the National Park Service to make them available to the public.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would explicitly prohibit sex discrimination. It is not currently a part of the Constitution, though its ratification status has long been debated. It was written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman and first introduced in Congress in December 1923. With the rise of the women's movement in the United States during the 1960s, the ERA garnered increasing support, and, after being reintroduced by Representative Martha Griffiths in 1971, it was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives that year, and by the U.S. Senate in 1972, thus submitting the ERA to the state legislatures for ratification, as provided by Article Five of the United States Constitution. A seven-year, 1979, deadline was included with the legislation by Congress. A simple majority of Congress later extended the deadline to 1982. Both deadlines passed with the ERA three short of the necessary 38 states for ratification. Even so, there are ongoing efforts to ratify the amendment.

The purpose of the ERA is to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. In the early history of the Equal Rights Amendment, middle-class women were largely supportive, while those speaking for the working class were often opposed, arguing that women should hold more domestic responsibility than men and that employed women needed special protections regarding working conditions and employment hours. Proponents asserted it would end legal distinctions between men and women in matters including divorce, property, and employment. Opponents have argued that it would remove protections from women and open women to be drafted into the military.

Dorothy Day OblSB (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social activism. She was perhaps the best-known political radical among American Catholics.

Day's conversion is described in her 1952 autobiography, The Long Loneliness. Day was also an active journalist, and described her social activism in her writings. In 1917, she was imprisoned as a member of suffragist Alice Paul's nonviolent Silent Sentinels. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker Movement, a pacifist movement that combines direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf. She practiced civil disobedience, which led to additional arrests in 1955, 1957, and in 1973 at age 75.