This column first appeared in The Amendment, a newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to her analysis. Since 1789, only one out of every 400 people who have ever walked the halls of Congress as a U.S. senator has been a Black woman.
After this year’s elections, there will likely be at least three serving simultaneously — maybe even four. Two years ago, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware became the only Black women to serve at the same time. Juliana Stratton is set to join them, and if Florida state Rep.
Angie Nixon does, too, the number of Black women senators would double. In a joint interview with these four women, all Democrats, the group talked about the importance of being seen, feeling supported and showing up for one another in a political climate that is hostile to Black women. The four of them said they have formed a bond shaped not only by their lived experiences but by a knowing that comes only from attempting to do what few who look like them ever have.
It’s not perceived or imagined. And no one understands what the path looks like except us, because we’ve been there.” In the final weeks of the midterm election, Stratton, a house music aficionado, shot a get-out-the-vote video in Washington, D.C., surrounded by her team, all of them dancing with the U.S. Capitol in the background.
Her moves weren’t missed by Alsobrooks, who has already declared her the best dancer of the group. Nixon, who has also been known to show up on social media posts dancing, had a question for Stratton: “Did they call you ‘ghetto’ because you were dancing too?” It was a familiar criticism to Blunt Rochester, a former ballerina who has talked about the importance of dance in her life. While inflation is going off the charts, your congresswoman is dancing.’ What he did was block out who I was dancing with.
It was John Lewis, right before he died,” she said of the late Democratic congresswoman from Georgia. They all nodded in recognition. For Black women, showing up as their full selves can attract unfair criticism rooted in racism and misogyny.
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