We lost Yvonne Lewis in 2022. I got to meet this tireless champion of equality while working with VARatifyERA. (Somehow, this is my only photo of us together, at the Virginia General Assembly, the day Virginia finally ratified.)

We lost my dad in 2019 a few months before VA became the 38th and final state needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. He and my mom raised me believing in my equality - it was an utter shock at 40 years old to learn that I was not, in fact, equal in the eyes of the US Constitution.

This year we're observing Black Friday as a day to honor those who worked for gender equality and did not live to see our constitutional equality gap closed. I'm thinking of two people in particular. 🧵

I think about this 2017 line from David Brooks all the time. It's never been more true.