"It caused a spark in so many women to know that the fight was worth it, and they were not alone in their efforts, and that there were thousands of women out there who agreed with them and who were going to be there to help." -Ann Richards, former governor of Texas In November 1977, 20,000 women and men left their jobs and homes in cities and small towns around the country to come together at the first National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas. Their aim was to end discrimination against women and promote their equal rights. Present were two former first ladies - Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford - and then First Lady Rosalyn Carter. Also present were grandmothers and lesbians, Republicans and Democrats, African Americans, Latinas and Native-American women, and the most influential leaders of the burgeoning women's movement: Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Smeal, Ann Richards, Coretta Scott King, Barbara Jordan and others. The award-winning "Sisters of '77," a look at that pivotal weekend and how it changed American life and the lives of the women who attended, airs on PBS Tuesday, March 1, 2005 on the Emmy Award-winning INDEPENDENT LENS. Susan Sarandon hosts. On the table at the convention were countless hot-button issues that ran the gamut of American women's concerns, such-as equal pay, day care, healthcare, minority rights, abortion, lesbian rights and workplace discrimination. After four days of feverish arguments, all-night caucuses, and with the attention of both protesters and the world's media upon them, the women hammered out a plan of action, ending the conference arm-in-arm, ready to take on the world. Told through actual footage of the conference as well as modern-day interviews with the many who attended, "Sisters of '77" provides a fascinating window into the past and present, as movement leaders talk about why the Equal Rights Amendment never passed and the advances made by women in the intervening decades. As Betty Friedan notes in the film, "I have this fantasy that someone at some day of judgment asks me, 'What have you done with your life?' So I say, 'Three kids, nine great-grandchildren, nine grandchildren, six books and a revolution.' And I think that revolution is pretty clear in this country, at least, and that women really can't be pushed back from where they are now."
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