Black Women Leading the Fight For Voting Rights
This summer has brought protests, rallies and arrests for the cause. WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 15: Melanie Campbell, CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, speaks during a news conference outside the AFL-CIO headquarters on July 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. The organized labor advocates called for the Senate to repeal the filibuster to allow passage of several bills they support, including the For The People Act and The John Lewis Voting Rights Act. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Alarmed by a wave of bills sweeping state legislatures around the country and a recent Supreme Court decision that critics contend will dismantle voting rights, Black women and their allies are taking courageous, coordinated steps to fight back.
In American city with a history of racism, women of color rise in watershed Boston mayor race
latimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from latimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lack of party support and money, plus racism and sexism, mean Black women often lose statewide elections Mabinty Quarshie, USA TODAY © Photo: Steve Helber, AP, Illustration: USA TODAY Network Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy holds her son, Alex Foy, as she and Del. Hala Ayala, D-Prince William, back, celebrate the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the House chambers at the Capitol, Jan. 27, 2020, in Richmond, Va.
In 2017, more than 30 prominent African American women wrote an open letter to then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, calling out the party for taking Black women’s political activism and leadership for granted.
“We have shown how Black women lead, yet the Party’s leadership from Washington to the state parties have few or no Black women in leadership, the letter said. More and more, Black women are running for office and winning elections – with scant support from Democratic Party infrastructure.
Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) has officially entered the race for the U.S. Senate in 2022. The Congresswoman is seeking to become the first Black person and only the second woman to represent Florida as a Senator.
“When you grow up in the South poor, Black and female, you have to have faith in progress and opportunity. My father was a janitor and my mother was a maid she said: ‘never tire of doing good, never tire,” said Demings in her announcement. “I’ve never tired of representing Florida, not for one single moment. I’ve never tired of standing up for what I believe is right. Now I’m running for the United States Senate because of two simple words: never tire.”
Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!
After graduating from college 35 years ago this week I took a job on a U.S. Senate campaign because I thought that getting good people elected to Congress was the cure for an unhealthy democracy. But after years of working for terrific candidates at all levels of government, I realized that it wasn’t a lack of good candidates that was causing dysfunction in Washington. Rather, it was then and still is the infrastructure of our electoral system that prioritizes handfuls of voters in swing states, protects incumbents, and solidifies the overrepresentation of white men in politics.
vimarsana © 2020. All Rights Reserved.