Mormons for ERA records, 1965-1993

Mormons for ERA was officially organized during the winter of 1978. The co-founders of the organization were Hazel Davis Rigby, Maida Rust Withers, Teddie Wood, and Sonia Johnson. Mormons for ERA was a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization. The organization was officially incorporated April 11, 1980.

Sonia Johnson was voted the first president and main spokesperson for the organization on May 7, 1980. On December 11, 1982, she officially resigned as president but still remained on the Board of Directors. Alice Allred Pottmyer was a member of the organization (she prepared many of the press releases) and succeeded Sonia Johnson as president on December 11, 1982.

The original Board of Directors were as follows:

The Board of Directors as of 1985 are as follows:

Function of the organization: By 1978, 35 states had ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. Three more states needed to ratify in order to make it part of the US Constitution. Mormons for ERA were a pro-ERA organization that worked, rallied, and lobbied for the ERA to be ratified in those states that had yet to do so. Their major activities included: formal and informal relations with the media, lobbying legislators, informing and educating the public on ERA issues, and debating ERA issues in public forums. One of the obstacles Mormons for ERA saw as a threat to the Equal Rights Amendment was the LDS Church's stand against the Equal Rights Amendment (they formally opposed ERA on October 22, 1976) and the Church's support of anti-ERA lobbying efforts.

In 1978 the time period within which ERA needed to be ratified was quickly approaching. Congress took an unprecedented step and extended the time for ratification by three years to 1982. During the well-publicized hearings on the extension, Sonia Johnson was called to testify on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment before the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights on August 4, 1978. On that day, Sonia Johnson and Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah (who was a member of the LDS Church and who also opposed the ERA bill) clashed on the issues of ERA and also the LDS Church's opposition to it.

After the extension was passed by Congress, Mormons for ERA continued to campaign for ERA. But the significant turning point in the group's activities and media coverage came in November of 1979. The LDS Church called Sonia Johnson into a bishop's court. Bishop Jeffery Willis presided over the hearing to determine whether or not Sonia should be excommunicated from the church. Despite the many testimonies on behalf of Sonia and the support vigils outside the hearing, Sonia Johnson was officially excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on December 5, 1979. This act alone propelled Sonia Johnson and Mormons for ERA into the national media spotlight and the heated national debate over ERA.

Ultimately the Equal Rights Amendment failed by three states to ratify and has never been passed by Congress again. Mormons for ERA continued to function as an organization for several years after, but by about 1987 funds and interest had begun to diminish. Subsequently, the organization finally disbanded.

BIOGRAPHY--ALICE ALLRED POTTMYER

Alice Allred was born in South Dakota but spent her early years as an active Latter-day Saints youth growing up in Texas in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her father was transferred to Washington, D.C. during the summer of 1954. Alice attended Brigham Young University and received her BS degree in journalism. During her time at BYU, she became friends with Maida Rust Withers and Hazel Davis Rigby (later to be founding members of Mormons for ERA).

Alice worked for twelve years in Washington, D.C. as a trade and professional editor. She married James Pottmyer and in 1972 left work and had her first baby, Laura. Their next child, Stephen, was born in 1975. With her young children at home and caring for her ailing mother-in-law, she would occasionally do part-time editing jobs from her home. She wrote articles and produced Dialogue magazine for five years. She wrote numerous articles for Sunstone magazine, was twice an Arlington delegate to the Virginia Democratic Convention, volunteered for Arlingtonians for a Better County, was a member of the PTA, was a leader for the Girl Scouts, and worked for the Church's public communications department.

Alice had long supported the Equal Rights Amendment, and in 1975 the issues of ERA began to heat up. With the increasing anti-ERA activity from conservative groups, including the LDS Church (the church formally opposed ERA October 22, 1976), Alice's friends from BYU, Maida Rust Withers and Hazel Davis Rigby, along with Teddie Wood and Soina Johnson, co-founded Mormons for ERA in 1978.

Although Alice was not a founding member, she did a great deal of background work for the group. She organized and gave background information to the media about the organization and their activities, including their lobbying efforts, their views on the complexities of ERA issues, and their debates on ERA issues in public forums. She also developed the press kits that were given to the media. This proved to be an invaluable task once the media coverage exploded when the Church excommunicated Sonia Johnson on December 5, 1979.

On December 11, 1982, Alice Allred Pottmyer succeeded Sonia Johnson as president of Mormons for ERA and also took over the newsletter. She functioned as president until 1987, when the funds and interest had begun to diminish.

BIOGRAPHY--HAZEL DAVIS RIGBY

Hazel Davis grew up in Salem, Utah and was an active member of the Latter-day Saints community. One of her childhood friends was Maida Rust (Withers); they both attended BYU. Hazel received her BA from BYU and then went on to receive her MA from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She married Dr. Ronald K. Rigby (Department of Defense, Naval Sea Systems Command). Hazel met Sonia Johnson in 1961 while both were attending graduate school, along with their husbands, at the University of Minnesota.

Her husband began working at the Department of Defense, Naval Sea Systems Command, and she began teaching and became head of the Business Department at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia.

In 1978 she co-founded the organization Mormons for ERA along with Teddie Wood, Maida Rust Withers, and Sonia Johnson. She was treasurer. In November of 1980, Mormons for ERA were holding a demonstration in front of the Washington Temple in Washington State. A scuffle erupted between the demonstrators and anti-ERA supporters. Subsequently, the police were called and Hazel was one of several demonstrators who was arrested. In the years following, Hazel played other important roles in Mormons for ERA activities and development.

BIOGRAPHY--MAIDA RUST WITHERS

Maida Rust was born October 13, 1936, in Kanab, Utah. She was the youngest of eight children born to Isabelle Martina Luke and Woodruff Rust. She was raised in Salem, Utah ,as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from which she was a sixth-generation pioneer descendant. She graduated from Spanish Fork High School in 1954. She then attended Brigham Young University where she received her BS in music and dance in 1958. She completed her MA in dance from the University of Utah.

She began her teaching career at Purdue University. By this time, Maida had married her husband, Lawrence Arlen Withers (born in Rexburg, Idaho). In 1963 Maida took a teaching position at Howard University for one year. During that time ,she marched with the other faculty members (she being the only white female faculty) to the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King was giving a speech.

At the end of that year, she accepted a position in the Department of Theater and Dance as an associate professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. During her career at George Washington University, she directed the MFA dance program and taught advanced dance, dance and movement improvisation, choreography, and performance art theory. She also served on the Board of Directors of Washington Projects for the Arts for eight years and served a three-year term on the Kennedy Center Education Committee.

On September 19, 1964, Maida and her husband had their first child, Kristin Withers. Almost five years later they had their second child, Lawrence Luke Withers, on May 28, 1969. Two years later, on April 15, 1971, they had twins, Eric Pratt and Marc Pratt Withers. Despite her young family at home, Maida's professional and creative career began to shine. In 1974 Maida founded the critically acclaimed dance troupe Maida Withers Dance Construction Company.

During the early seventies, she became increasingly involved in the social and political issues of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. In 1975 the issues of the Equal Rights Amendment began to heat up. It was during this year that Maida Rust Withers and one of her friends, Teddie Wood, became active participants in the pro-ERA movement. But with increasing anti-ERA activity from conservative groups, including the LDS Church (the Church formally opposed ERA October. 22, 1976), Teddie Wood, Sonia Johnson, and Maida, along with one of Maida's close childhood friends, Hazel Davis Rigby, co-founded Mormons for ERA in 1978.

During the 1980s, Maida's focus on social reform turned to environmental awareness. The social issues of the past and her activism in the equal rights movement prepared her for her passionate environmental activism. In 1992 Maida Rust Withers and her dance troupe participated with other international artists for ecology at the historic United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development. Maida Rust Withers continues to tour nationally and internationally with her dance company and uses dance as interpretive means for environmental awareness. She has created over 35 distinctive works for the stage and video, and subsequently she has received a myriad of prestigious awards and accolades from her peers, critics, and the public.