On the local and national political scene, Black women not only are engaged, they’re winning elections.
Marita Garrett went from wanting to better her Wilkinsburg community to becoming its first Black female mayor.
Summer Lee went from 2005 Woodland Hills High School graduate to just months from becoming state representative for House District 34, which includes her hometown, North Braddock.
In San Francisco, London Breed went from growing up in public housing to being sworn-in a few weeks ago as the city’s first Black female mayor.
And remember the name, Stacey Abrams. In May, she became the first Black woman nominated by a major political party in America for the position of Governor. Come this November, Abrams, the Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia, could become the first Black female Governor in U.S. history.
Black women—they’re not just talking the talk, they’re walking the walk.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez flew into the Grayson Center in the Hill District, Aug. 9, to reinforce the party’s commitment to giving Black women “a seat at the table.”
A Democratic Party-sponsored event, the Town Hall Discussion was hosted by TALK Magazine President Roxanne Sewell, with locally-based panelists such as Garrett, Lee, Valerie McDonald Roberts, and City of Pittsburgh communications analyst Keyva Clark.
“I’m proud of the fact that I can sit here and say we care about empowering African American women,” Perez told an audience of about 100. “Then we went and we invested in our women,” touting that the DNC senior leadership is the most diverse it’s ever been.
He explained how the party helped an African American female candidate, Keisha Lance Bottoms, pull off the victory to become Atlanta’s current mayor. “She was down in the polls…what did we do? We went and we bought 55,000 cell phone numbers of sporadic voters, we ran an aggressive text messaging campaign, and we were talking to voters. She won by 700 votes. If she were here, she would say that the efforts of the DNC were indispensable to her success.”
Lee told the crowd it’s important that voters support African American female candidates early in their candidacy, rather than jumping on the bandwagon later. McDonald Roberts, the first African American female member of Pittsburgh City Council, told the crowd that financial support for Black candidates is paramount to the success of a campaign. Garrett said there are some African American women who may not want to run for elected office, and that’s OK. But, “we need the campaign managers, we need the volunteer coordinators, we need the field directors…all of those parts” are integral to winning elections.
“We are engaged, but I think one of the situations which we all saw here was in the case of Antwon Rose,” Garrett said.
Rose was shot and killed by East Pittsburgh police Officer Michael Rosfeld on June 19, shot three times as the unarmed 17-year-old ran away from the officer. Eight days later, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala criticized East Pittsburgh’s police force, saying he was “concerned about the lack of policies and procedures” in the borough. “In response to questions by major crime investigators when they first came on the scene in East Pittsburgh, they said, ‘how do you handle these situations, what are your policies?’ And they said, ‘we don’t have policies.’ That’s a very dangerous situation,” Zappala said at a June 27 news conference when he announced criminal homicide charges against Officer Rosfeld.
“That showed that every single level of local elections matter,” Garrett said at the Town Hall Discussion. “Why you need to elect responsible, qualified people on your council.”
Like us at https://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Pittsburgh-Courier/143866755628836?ref=hl
Follow @NewPghCourier on Twitter https://twitter.com/NewPghCourier