Driving the Vote for Equality

A historic 1914 Saxon automobile known as the “Golden Flyer II” has arrived in Chicago as part of the national 2026 Driving the Vote for Equality Tour, a 10,700 miles cross-country journey across 25 states to secure voting rights for all and push for recognition of the Equal Rights Amendment.

The tour draws inspiration from the remarkable 1916 cross-country journey of suffragists Alice Burke and Nell Richardson, who traveled the nation by automobile advocating for women’s right to vote at a time when the federal amendment was stalled, as the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is stalled today.

Organizers will connect the campaign of the original 1916 journey in Illinois to the fight today to keep full voting rights for all and recognize the ERA. Organizers are working with community members on Sign4ERA.org, a national petition drive hoping to have 1 million signatures by Election Day.

LWV Chicago President (and ERA specialist for LWVIL) Jane Ruby spoke at the Chicago stop for the tour. Read her remarks at the event:

“The Equal Rights Amendment is not only a women’s issue. It is an everyone problem, because inequality does not stop with one group. When the rights of women are treated as optional, the rights of everyone become more fragile.

“We are seeing that clearly today. Attacks on gender equality are often one of the first stones pulled from the wall. They become steps toward broader assaults on fundamental rights, on the rule of law, and on the democratic institutions meant to protect us all. When equality is denied in one place, democracy is weakened everywhere.

“Let me be very clear. Women have never been handed justice. Women have organized for it. Marched for it. Demanded it. Won it. And still, we are fighting.

“In that fight, we stand proudly with the legacy of Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., who understood that the struggle for women’s equality is inseparable from the struggle for civil rights, human rights, and democracy itself. He knew that “When women lead, peace follows.” He did not treat the ERA as symbolic. He treated it as necessary. So should we.

“Rev. Jackson said it plainly at the Democratic National Convention: ‘It is not enough to hope ERA will pass. How can we pass ERA? We must all come up together.’”

“That is still the charge before us. The ERA belongs in our Constitution because equality belongs at the center of our democracy.”

Pictured above, former U.S. Ambassador Carol Mosley Braun and LWV Chicago's Betty Magness and Jane Ruby pose with the Golden Flyer II.