GVSU plans Women's Equality Day event

The Progressive Women's Alliance joins the Greater Grand Rapids Women's History Council (GGRWHC) to observe Women's Equality Day on Thursday, August 25, 2011, 7 p.m., at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, 303 Pearl St. NW in Grand Rapids.

GGRWHC is partnering with the Ford Museum to sponsor an evening with Sara Fitzgerald, author of a new biography on Michigan political icon, Elly Peterson: Mother of the Moderates.

According to the PWA website, "Peterson was a key leader in two of the most important political campaigns then under way: Gerald R. Ford’s contest for the presidency and the campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Fitzgerald will highlight the roles Peterson played in these battles which capped her long political career. Peterson ran for a U.S. Senate seat from Michigan in 1964, twice served as assistant chair of the Republican National Committee, and became the first woman to chair a state committee when she assumed that role in Michigan in 1965."

Fitzgerald has worked for the Washington Post, National Journal magazine, the St. Petersburg Times, the Miami Herald, and the Akron Beacon Journal. She was the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of The Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan’s student newspaper.

She will sign copies of the book, which will be for sale in the Ford gift shop.

This event is open to the public.