Congresswoman Barbara Lee Reflects on Historic Moment Less Than One Week from Election Day
Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-12) today released a piece on Medium reflecting on Vice President Kamala Harris’ historic presidential campaign 50 years after Lee worked on the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm:
“As Election Day approaches, I’m reflecting on a few dates and numbers that mean something to me.
Zero: the number of Black members in Congress 56 years ago. Next Congress, we hope to swear in over 60 members in the Congressional Black Caucus.
Three: The number of Black women to ever serve in the United States Senate since the first Congress in 1789.
Two: The number of Black women that will be elected to the Senate this year alone if we do our job.
1972: The first time a Black woman, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, ran for president in one of the major political parties of the United States.
Zero: the number of Black women to ever serve as president of the United States.
IF we do the work, we can change that with President Kamala Harris.
As I reflect on what would be Congresswoman Chisholm’s 100th birthday next month, I could not help but remember that my first official involvement in U.S. politics was working for her presidential campaign in 1972.
Over 50 years later, I have been involved in every single campaign since. Shirley was my mentor — she was a bold visionary, a progressive woman who understood that working together in coalitions was the only way to make life better for everyone, to build an equitable society and democracy that lived up to the creed of “liberty and justice for all.”
The historic moment we are in today is not lost on me. I have had the privilege to have known Vice President Kamala Harris for over three decades. She, after all, is a daughter of the East Bay. She, like Shirley, truly is a fighter for the people.
And I know she can move our country forward in a new way. As a member of her National Advisory Board, I have campaigned across our country to help take her message, her legacy of service, and her “to-do list,” as she says, to voters who were almost starting to feel hopeless, but are now feeling hopeful once again, captured by the politics joy and the bright possibilities brought upon by a possible Harris-Walz administration.
Recently, I visited churches in North Carolina with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The chair of our CBC political action committee, Chairman Gregory Meeks from New York’s fifth district, eloquently and powerfully presented a vision of what Dr. Maya Angelou wrote in her famous poem, “And Still I Rise:” “I am the dream and the hope of the slave.”
Meeks remarked that on Jan. 20, 2025, we will observe the birthday of our drum major for justice, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
He also described that on Jan. 20, IF we do the work — if we knock on doors, if we make those phone calls, if we spread our message — standing on the podium at the U.S. Capitol will be the first Black speaker of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries.
In the wings will be over 60 members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Holding Frederick Douglass’ Bible will be the first African American woman appointed to the highest court of the land, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
She will be swearing-in the first Black woman to serve as president, Kamala Harris, in front of the shining white dome of the United States Capitol, built by enslaved Black people.
In front of her and beyond, the tens of millions of Black men and women who voted for her. The world will witness the hope and the dreams of our ancestors ushering in a new way forward.
As I sat in front of the stage this week at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., as Vice President Harris delivered remarks with the Oval Office behind her, I could not help but feel that our country was ready for this historic moment.
We are not only voting for a Black woman as Commander in Chief of the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. We are definitively stating that we will not allow the clocks of freedom and justice to be turned back.
We are voting for our ancestors’ hopes and dreams. We are voting for the generations that will come after us, long after we are gone. We are voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Let’s get this done.
