The National Women's Conference was held in Houston, Texas on November 18-21, 1977. Organized in response to a 1975 United Nations declaration that 1975 be the "International Year of the Woman" (later extended to "International Decade for Women"), President Gerald Ford established a National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year "to promote equality between men and women," US Representatives Bella Abzug and Patsy Mink sponsored a bill that approved $5 million in federal funds to support both state and national women's conferences. The state conferences would be responsible for electing delegates and considering issues voted on at the national conference. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Bella Abzug as presiding officer of the IWY Commission, which put the state conferences in motion and culminated with the national conference later that year.
On November 18, 1977, 2,000 state delegates and some 20,000 observers kicked off the conference. Speakers included Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Coretta Scott King, Liz Carpenter, Jean Stapleton, and First Ladies Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, and Lady Bird Johnson. Texas Governor Ann Richards, then a Travis County commissioner, was also present and spoke regarding the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Houston native Barbara Jordan was chosen to deliver the keynote address. Her rousing keynote address brought the audience to its feet with these lines: "Human rights apply equally to Soviet dissidents, Chilean peasants, and American women! Women are human. We know our rights are limited. We know our rights are violated. We need a domestic human rights program. This conference should be the beginning of such an effort, an effort that would be enhanced if we would not allow ourselves to be brainwashed by people who predict chaos and failure for us. Tell them they lie -- and move on."
Delegates debated and collectively voted on 26 policy recommendations, including the ERA, child care, abortion rights, insurance, health, homemakers, sexual orientation, rights of the disabled, elderly women's rights, and minority women's rights. The resulting National Plan of Action was submitted to President Carter and Congress in March 1978, and a month later the National Advisory Committee for Women was established.