Biography | Gloria Steinem — The Houston Coliseum That Split Her Life in Two

From 18 to 21 November 1977, the National Women's Conference filled the Sam Houston Coliseum at 801 Bagby Street.

It was the only federally funded national meeting of American women.

About 2,000 elected delegates sat on the floor.

Tens of thousands more watched from the galleries and the surrounding blocks.

Gloria Steinem came as a commissioner appointed by President Jimmy Carter.

Barbara Jordan of Houston gave the keynote.

Bella Abzug chaired.

Coretta Scott King worked the minority-rights plank through the night with other Black, Latina, Asian American, and Native delegates.

Steinem stayed with that caucus.

The 26 planks that came out of the hall went to the White House as the National Plan of Action.

A torch that had run through 14 states arrived at the Albert Thomas Convention Center, a block away, in the rain.

Phyllis Schlafly's counter-rally packed the AstroArena across town.

The Coliseum itself was demolished in 1998.

The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts opened on the same Bagby Street ground in 2002.

A visitor now buys a ticket for a musical, not a floor fight over child care and the ERA.

After she got home, Steinem wrote to Abzug that the rest of her life would divide into before Houston and after it.

The letter is why this demolished arena still earns a pin.

Photo: official program cover, National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, 1977, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Site as it stands: Hobby Center, Ed Schipul, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Portrait: Gloria Steinem, 12 January 1972, Warren K. Leffler, Library of Congress, public domain.