MOUNT LAUREL, NJ, September 30, 2024 – The Alice Paul Institute is celebrating 40 years of education and advocacy with the announcement of a new identity: The Alice Paul Center for Gender Justice (APC). The new name reflects a major shift in identity for the organization, signaling that APC’s 40-year commitment to advocating for women’s rights is now a much broader mission, clearly embracing the intersectionality of the people they fight for. The bold new logo, and colors that reference the hues of the Suffragist movement, are meant to herald an institution that is taking its fight forward into the future.

“Our work for gender justice has never been more urgent,” explains APC Executive Director Rachael Glashan Rupisan. “We know that the intersection of gender, race and class puts certain groups at particular risk for discrimination. Our new name emphasizes the fact that our basic mission — to educate and advocate for an underrepresented group –has expanded to include many people who find themselves facing the same restriction of rights that women faced 100 years ago –and unfortunately still do.”

The Alice Paul Center’s work has many facets. From a wide range of public events, to advocacy efforts focused on the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), to youth education initiatives including the transformative Girls’ Leadership Council for New Jersey high school students, APC is a constant hive of activity, all rooted in history. As Rupisan comments, “Our new tagline is ‘where history inspires action,’ which is about more than the fact that we are located in Alice Paul’s family home. When you dive into accounts of specific groups of people that have been oppressed throughout history, you can start to understand, empathize, be compassionate about the struggles you’re learning about, what real people’s experiences have been. Engaging with authentic history that way motivates you to take action now.”

Alice Paul was a trailblazing suffragist who fought fiercely – unswayed even by imprisonment and force-feeding –for the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1919, which gave some women the right to vote. She then went on to co-author the ERA, still pending adoption today. The Alice Paul Center is housed in Alice’s family home in Mount Laurel, NJ, — one of the less than 4% of national monuments devoted to women –where her Quaker parents instilled in her a deep belief in the equality of all people.

Alice is a major figure in the fight for women’s rights, but also a controversial one, often seen as sidelining Black women in her effort to get the 19th Amendment passed. The 19th did give the right to vote to all women, but which women specifically was an issue left to the states, resulting in a voting map where Black women in states like Pennsylvania and New York could vote in 1920, but in most Southern states, could not. Rather than fight to extend the rights of Black women specifically, Alice spent the rest of her long life focused on the ERA.

The relevance of the ERA has grown as American society has evolved. If passed, its protections would now apply to a much wider range of issues, relevant to matters ranging from LGBTQ rights, to paternity leave, to providing new arguments for pro-choice advocacy. The Alice Paul Center’s shift in scope mirrors this broadened understanding of what gender justice means for all Americans.

Chair of APC’s Board of Directors Dr. June DePonte Sernak comments, “As we wrote in our new strategic plan, ‘we envision a world in which all people are allied in pursuit of liberation and justice under the law and in everyday practice. And, like Alice Paul, we fight for a world in which no person’s rights are denied or abridged on account of sex.’”

The mission of the Alice Paul Center is to build contemporary action and intergenerational movement for gender justice through the lens of history and of place. APC co-founder Barbara Irvine sums up the organization’s evolution like this: “Our intent was never to make this into a historic house museum. We wanted a place to educate people about women’s history through the example of Alice’s life and legacy, using her and other women in history as role models to educate people about leadership. We knew that if you have an idea, and if you bring other people along, and you work pretty well together, then it’s going to happen if you persevere. But to see how the organization has grown, expanded its vision, and thrived over 40 years is more than any of us ever imagined.”

The Alice Paul Center for Gender Justice (APC) works toward gender equality by fostering leadership skills in girls and women, advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment, and promoting organizations and sites that honor women. Founded in 1984 as an all-volunteer effort to commemorate the centennial of Paul’s birth, APC has grown to a paid staff of eight, dozens of volunteers and partners, and an active Board who together make the organization’s unique combination of leadership development, civic engagement, and historic preservation work a success. Programming educates students in Paul’s history and provides space to discuss current issues, find their voice and become politically aware. API has a website, toolkit, and communications to support people dedicated to making the ERA the law of the land.

To get involved with APC education and advocacy efforts, contact info@alicepaul.org or
call (856) 231-1885.