Former Female Maine Police Chief Hitting The Road In Cross-Country Campaign For The E.R.A.

Ex- Freeport Police Chief Susan Nourse knows about breaking glass ceilings.

After all, she’s been one of the few female top cops Maine has ever had.

So it’s more than fitting that Nourse would hop in a replica of a 1914 car and embark on a cross-country trek lobbying for the Equal Rights Amendment.

The 64-year-old ex-chief is helping a campaign to reenact the trip two suffragists took in 1916 when they drove from New York to California and back in a two-seater that had to be cranked to start.

The goal then – 110 years ago – was the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which recognized women’s right to vote.

The same make and model of car began a similar trip this week.

The goal this time is promoting a joint congressional resolution that would add the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

The amendment has been ratified by the necessary 38 states, but it has never been officially certified.

“We are where the suffragists were in 1916 when they did the same drive,” said former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, who is spearheading a campaign to recognize the E.R.A.

“They decided in 1916 that the 19th Amendment was stalled and they had to raise awareness,” Maloney told the New York Times. “Now the E.R.A. is stalled.”

Nourse had been with the Freeport Police Department for 36 years, four of them as the top cop, when she retired six years ago.

She arrived at the department in 1984, armed with a teaching degree in music, of all things.

Nourse began as a dispatcher and part-time police officer, working her way up the ranks, becoming the departments’ first female police chief in 2016.

Thirty-six years wearing the badge, packing heat, breaking up fights and an occasional glass ceiling along the way.

But after those many decades in uniform Nourse said her favorite part of the job wasn’t just fighting crime, but inspiring youngsters to prevent it.

“My best day is when I meet up with a 6-year-old and give them a police sticker and ask them to help me keep everybody safe,” Nourse said when she retired.