Profiles

First Lady

Michelle Obama

When people ask First Lady Michelle Obama to describe herself, she doesn’t hesitate to say that first and foremost, she is Malia and Sasha’s mom.

But before she was a mother — or a wife, lawyer, or public servant — she was Fraser and Marian Robinson’s daughter.

The Robinsons lived in a brick bungalow on the South Side of Chicago. Fraser was a pump operator for the Chicago Water Department, and despite being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at a young age, he hardly ever missed a day of work. Marian stayed home to raise Michelle and her older brother Craig, skillfully managing a busy household filled with love, laughter, and important life lessons.

A product of Chicago public schools, Michelle Robinson studied sociology and African-American studies at Princeton University. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1988, she joined the Chicago law firm Sidley & Austin, where she later met Barack Obama, the man who would become the love of her life.

After a few years, Mrs. Obama decided her true calling was working with people to serve their communities and their neighbors. She served as assistant commissioner of planning and development in Chicago’s City Hall before becoming the founding executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an AmeriCorps program that prepares youth for public service.

In 1996, Mrs. Obama joined the University of Chicago with a vision of bringing campus and community together. As Associate Dean of Student Services, she developed the university’s first community service program, and under her leadership as Vice President of Community and External Affairs for the University of Chicago Medical Center, volunteerism skyrocketed.

Mrs. Obama has continued her efforts to support and inspire young people during her time as First Lady.

In 2010, she launched Let’s Move!, bringing together community leaders, educators, medical professionals, parents, and others in a nationwide effort to address the challenge of childhood obesity. Let’s Move! has an ambitious goal: to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation. Whether it’s providing healthier food in our schools, helping kids be more physically active, or urging companies to market healthier foods to our children, Let’s Move! is focused on giving parents the support they need to make healthier choices for their kids.

In 2011, Mrs. Obama and Dr. Jill Biden came together to launch Joining Forces, a nationwide initiative calling all Americans to rally around service members, veterans, and their families and support them through wellness, education, and employment opportunities. Joining Forces works hand in hand with the public and private sector to ensure that service members, veterans, and their families have the tools they need to succeed throughout their lives.

In 2014, Mrs. Obama launched the Reach Higher Initiative, an effort to inspire young people across America to take charge of their future by completing their education past high school, whether at a professional training program, a community college, or a four-year college or university. Reach Higher aims to ensure that all students understand what they need to complete their education by working to expose students to college and career opportunities; helping them understand financial aid eligibility; encouraging academic planning and summer learning opportunities; and supporting high school counselors who do essential work to help students get into college.

In 2015, Mrs. Obama joined President Obama to launch Let Girls Learn, a U.S. government-wide initiative to help girls around the world go to school and stay in school. As part of this effort, Mrs. Obama is calling on countries across the globe to help educate and empower young women, and she is sharing the stories and struggles of these young women with young people here at home to inspire them to commit to their own education.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-GA) (1973 - 1977), U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1977 - 1979), and 55th Mayor of Atlanta (1982 - 1990)

Andrew Young

A senior aide to Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) during the 1960s, Andrew Young had a meditative temperament that shaped his views as a proponent of nonviolent resistance. By the time he was sworn in to Congress in 1973, Young was committed to bringing King’s vision of civil rights to the nation and the world. His experiences in the grass–roots politics of the civil rights movement and his diplomatic perspective allowed Young to take principled but pragmatic stands for his constituents.

Andrew Jackson Young, Jr., was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Andrew and Daisy Fuller Young. His father was a dentist and his mother was a schoolteacher. Andrew and his younger brother Walt “grew up as the only black children in a middle–class, predominantly Irish and Italian neighborhood” in New Orleans. After graduating from Gilbert Academy in 1947, he attended Dillard University for one year and then transferred to Howard University in Washington, DC. Young earned a bachelor of science degree in biology in 1951. After graduating from Howard, Young considered a career in dentistry, but decided to pursue a career in the ministry instead. He attended the Hartford Theological Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, earning a bachelor of divinity degree from Hartford in 1955, and was ordained a minister in the United Church of Christ. While at seminary, Young met his future wife, Jean Childs, a teacher, in 1952; after a brief courtship, they married on June 7, 1954. They had four children: Andrea, Lisa, Paula, and Andrew III. Two years after his wife died of cancer in 1994, Young married Carolyn Watson, an elementary school teacher. After graduating from the seminary, Young served as a pastor, teacher, and civil rights activist in Marion, Alabama, and in Thomasville, and Beachton, Georgia, until he was invited to work in the Youth Work Division of the National Council of Churches in New York City, where he served as assistant director from 1957 to 1961. In 1961, Young returned to the South to participate in a voter education program sponsored by the United Church of Christ. He moved from New York to Atlanta and joined the SCLC.

Young organized a citizenship training program at the SCLC and collaborated with its members. By mid–1962, he began to work closely with Reverend King’s staff, including civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. Arrested for training students to register voters, King and Abernathy relied on Young to handle various duties while incarcerated in Albany, Georgia, for seven weeks. Young also served as a mediator between the SCLC and the Albany police. He subsequently volunteered to mediate between the SCLC and white southerners. His effectiveness multiplied his responsibilities: in 1964, King named Young executive director of the SCLC. In his leadership role, Young provided logistical and legal support for prominent demonstrations and legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

When civil rights activist Julian Bond declined to run in the Democratic primary for the congressional district encompassing metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, and its northern suburbs, Young resigned from the SCLC in 1970 to enter the race. Young suggested his campaign was motivated by the belief that he could initiate change from inside the political power structure, rather than from outside: “There just comes a time when any social movement has to come in off the street and enter politics.” He also benefited from a reapportionment that increased the number of black voters in the Atlanta district to almost 40 percent. Young advocated what he called the New South Coalition, which he defined as “black votes, liberal votes, [and] white labor votes,” acknowledging, “The problem is to involve those new white voters without stirring up the dyed–in–the–wool racists in the process.” The New South Coalition was a base of electoral support that Young and other Atlanta politicians such as Mayor Sam Massell and future mayor Maynard Jackson relied upon. In the Democratic primary, Young defeated Wyman C. Lowe, a white lawyer, in a runoff election, with 60 percent of the vote.8 However, in the general election Young lost to two–term incumbent Republican Fletcher Thompson, who garnered 57 percent of the vote. Young believed that “if a little more than half of the 35,000 registered … who did not vote had gone to the polls, he would have defeated the Republican incumbent.” After losing the general election, he chaired Atlanta’s Community Relations Commission. This position allowed Young to acclimate himself with the political environment of the Fifth District and provided him greater exposure to local constituents.

In 1972 Young orchestrated a second campaign for the House when the incumbent, Thompson, ran for the U.S. Senate. After defeating three primary opponents with 60 percent of the vote, he ran in the general election against Republican Rodney Cook, a veteran politician who served four terms in the Georgia house and also on the Atlanta board of aldermen. Young opposed highway building and commercial development along the Chattahoochee River, both issues that resonated with Atlanta residents. He also described a four–point plan for improving public education that advocated federal and state grants instead of property taxes for funding, greater community involvement, a curriculum that was relevant to its urban constituents, and racial integration at all levels of the system. Young ran a savvy campaign that incorporated aggressive voter registration and a media blitz. He also benefited from redistricting that added blacks while reducing the number of conservative white communities. As a result, he achieved victory in the majority–white district, winning an estimated 95 percent of the black vote and 23 percent of the white vote.

Young was the first black Representative from Georgia since Jefferson Long’s election a century earlier. Young and Barbara Jordan of Texas, also entering Congress for the first time, served as the first black Members from the Deep South since Reconstruction. “I consider this victory a little more than just being the first Black man to go to Congress from this deep South state,” Young noted. “I see this as a city–wide mandate of people of both races working together to achieve the kind of representation that this area so badly needs.” During the 93rd Congress (1973–1975), he sought to improve public education and the social infrastructure of his district by serving on the Committee on Banking and Currency and its Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Finance.

During his first term, Young developed a record as a liberal advocate who supported governmental solutions to complications arising from social disfranchisement and promoted economic opportunities to benefit society. One of his early initiatives was the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act, a program to facilitate the building of mass transit systems such as MARTA in Atlanta. Although a public transportation system would help all Atlanta businesses, the Georgia Representative argued that blacks would benefit directly from the $1 billion in federal support. He also insisted that residents should have a voice in such mass transit development. Young ensured that he visited his district on weekends because he understood the importance of being visible to his constituents, especially newly enfranchised black voters. “[W]e’re terribly cynical about people we don’t see,” Young once remarked. “We don’t read too much about our men in the paper, so it’s their physical presence and accessibility that counts.”

Young also joined the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and established a liberal voting record on domestic issues. He rejected cuts in domestic spending for the poor while supporting an increase in wages for workers in the public sector. Young criticized the Richard M. Nixon administration’s cuts in rural spending by linking the rural poverty with forced migration to urban centers and the problems that ensued. He also argued that both black and white middle–class families could suffer because of Nixon’s economic policies, such as the federal moratorium on financing new housing. Throughout his congressional career, both on his own and through the CBC, Young challenged the President to preserve legislation that benefited black constituents. He denounced the Nixon administration for an anti–busing bill and for failing to support mass transit, suggesting that some of these policies could hurt white middle–class constituents as much as black constituents. In a CBC forum called the “True State of the Union,” Young declared, “the overall goal [for Congress] must be to return the economy to a system which generates growth and production instead of death and destruction,” and to “provide the aggressive leadership in rebuilding an economy of peace and justice.”

Young was able to work successfully with Republicans across the aisle by approaching them one–on–one to discuss political issues. Using negotiating skills he developed in the SCLC—dubbed “the Atlanta style”— he reached compromises with political allies and opponents. Although Young clearly staked out his position as a Democratic liberal, he exhibited a shrewd political pragmatism that surprised his allies. It was noted that the Atlanta Representative, “avoids[s] the appearance of doctrinaire politics, while fulfilling the promise implicit in his progression from black civil rights leader to U.S. Congressman—the promise of effective representation for black as well as white citizens.” In October 1973, Young was the only CBC member who voted for Republican Minority Leader Gerald Ford of Michigan as Richard Nixon’s Vice President, despite their political disagreements. Young explained, “I decided that here was a guy I wanted to give a chance. He was certainly better than a Reagan or any of the other alternatives at the time. Besides, Atlanta was going to need to work very closely with the next administration.”

Young developed a keen interest in U.S. foreign policy, especially concerning Africa, Asia, and Latin America. One of his earliest bills called for barring U.S. government contracts to companies that practiced racial discrimination in South Africa. Young also made congressional visits to South Africa in 1972 and to Zambia, Kenya, and Nigeria in 1975. He opposed the Byrd Amendment and testified before the Senate against the nomination of Nathaniel Davis for Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, due to his ambassadorship to Chile during a CIA–sponsored coup d’état against its president in 1973.

In July 1973, Young and some southern Republicans successfully lobbied for a foreign aid bill provision that authorized the President to cancel aid that Portugal would use for military action in its African colonies. The House passed the amendment. Young commented “some of the people I disagree with the most are some of the people I have come to respect the most … I can usually swing Democratic support, but unless you can get Republican support, nothing happens around here. I’m not going to ask them … to do anything that’s going to hurt them politically and they know better than to ask me.”

Young won re–election to a second term with 72 percent of the vote in 1974. In the 94th Congress (1975–1977), he became the first black Representative appointed to the House Rules Committee.34 Young was also elected treasurer of the CBC and a member of its executive committee. In the summer of 1975 he worked to pass an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. During deliberations on the House Floor, Young delivered a prepared statement that outlined the successes of the Voting Rights Act: increasing the number of black elected officials in the South, boosting black voter turnout, initiating monitoring by federal examiners and observers, and helping “language minorities,” such as Latinos. He believed the Voting Rights Act was necessary to ensure minority participation in voting and argued that the act allowed politicians to appeal to a cross–section of society instead of only to a privileged few. “There was a time, when, in order to be elected from our part of the country, you had to present yourself at your worst,” Young observed. “The man who was the chairman of my campaign … had to run as a segregationist when he wanted to run statewide.” Following these deliberations, the House voted 341 to 70 to extend coverage of the Voting Rights Act.

For the remainder of the Congress, Young continued to seek ways to improve the lives of his rural and urban constituents. He sponsored bills that outlined comprehensive health care plans and testified on behalf of bills that preserved food stamp programs and economic development in his district and in Africa. Young sponsored the Food Stamp Act of 1976, an act that proposed an overhaul of the program.

During the early 1970s, Young became acquainted with James Earl (Jimmy) Carter, who was the governor of Georgia. Carter’s sincerity and the men’s mutual interest in promoting human rights formed the basis for a strong relationship. The Georgia Representative supported Carter’s bid for the presidency in 1976 with a seconding speech at the Democratic National Convention in New York City and organized voter registration drives in urban areas for the successful Carter campaign. In 1976, Young won re–election to a third term in the House with 80 percent of the vote. On January 25, 1977, after accepting President Carter’s offer to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Young resigned from Congress.

As the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Young became the initial point of contact for the Carter administration’s foreign policy in Africa and Asia. By using the network of contacts that had been developing since the 1950s, he played an active role in articulating Carter’s position on human rights and liberal capitalism in Rhodesia, South Africa, and Angola. Young resigned the ambassadorship in 1979 in the wake of severe criticism following his meeting with Zehdi Labib Terzi, the U.N. observer for the Palestine Liberation Organization. From 1982 to 1990, he served as mayor of Atlanta. He spent a great deal of time traveling nationally and internationally to build Atlanta’s reputation as a financial competitor on the world stage. Young also succeeded in bringing the Olympic Games to the city in 1996. In 1990, he launched a gubernatorial bid, but lost to Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller, who garnered 65 percent of the vote in a runoff election. He eventually formed a consulting firm dedicated to fostering economic development in Africa and the Caribbean. In 2003, Young considered a run for the U.S. Senate, but declined because winning “would mean I would spend the next seven years in Washington, and Washington is not always the center of action.” Young remains involved with a number of consulting firms and nonprofit organizations in the Atlanta area.

65th Secretary of State

General Colin L. Powell

Colin L. Powell was appointed Secretary of State by George W. Bush on January 20, 2001, after being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He served for four years, leaving the position on January 26, 2005. He was the first African-American to serve as Secretary of State.

Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. The son of two Jamaican immigrants, he was raised in the South Bronx. He attended City College of New York, and it was there that he began his military service, joining the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). After his graduation in 1958, Powell was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. During his 35 years in the Army, he served two tours in Vietnam, was stationed in West Germany and South Korea, and acted as President Ronald Reagan’s Deputy National Security Advisor in 1987 then National Security Advisor from 1988 until 1989. In 1989 he was promoted to the rank of general, and was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the four years Powell served in that capacity, he oversaw 28 crises, including Operation Desert Storm in 1991. After his retirement in 1993, he founded America’s Promise, an organization which helps at-risk children. He was nominated for Secretary of State by President George W. Bush on December 16, 2000.

At the beginning of his term, Powell placed an emphasis on reaffirming diplomatic alliances throughout the world, supporting a national missile defense system, working towards peace in the Middle East, and prioritizing sanctions instead of force in potential hot spots such as Iraq. He also focused on reinvigorating U.S. diplomacy through reforms in the Department of State’s organizational culture and an infusion of resources for personnel, information technology, security, and facilities.

Powell’s term, however, was soon dominated by the challenges the Bush Administration faced after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Powell was one of the foremost supporters of taking swift military action against al-Qaeda and demanded immediate cooperation from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S. search for those who were complicit in the attacks.

When the Administration’s attention shifted to Iraq and the possibility that Saddam Hussein was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Powell pressed to have UN inspectors investigate. In February 2003, Powell presented intelligence to the UN that supported the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and could produce more. Subsequently, the Administration moved quickly toward preemptive military action against Iraq, despite Powell’s advice that war should not begin until a large coalition of allies and a long-term occupation plan were in place. In 2004, some of the intelligence that Powell had brought before the UN in 2003 was found to be erroneous.

Although Afghanistan and Iraq demanded a great deal of Powell’s attention during his tenure, he pursued other important U.S. foreign policy initiatives and grappled with various crises that arose between 2001 and 2005. After initially difficult Administration interactions with Russia and China, Powell worked to improve both bilateral relationships. Prominent among these efforts were management of U.S. withdrawal from the U.S.-Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and the signing of the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions in May 2002.

In the area of foreign aid, Powell pushed the Administration to increase its commitment to the international fight against AIDS, and oversaw a doubling of development assistance funding. He also pressed for international cooperation to halt the nuclear weapons programs of North Korea and Iran, and the Administration achieved an important nonproliferation success when Libya agreed to give up its weapons programs in 2003.

Powell confronted a variety of international crises as well, including a near war between nuclear powers India and Pakistan in 2001-2002, domestic turmoil in Liberia (2003) and Haiti (2004), and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. His continued belief that Middle East stability required a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict led him to advocate the 2002 “Road Map” that aimed at creating an independent Palestinian state at peace with Israel. Although President Bush endorsed the plan, Powell was not able to persuade the Administration to make a strong commitment to its implementation.

On November 15, 2004, Powell announced his resignation. After stepping down as Secretary of State, he returned to a busy life in the private sector continuing his work with America’s Promise Alliance. He serves on the Boards of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Eisenhower Fellowship Program, and the Powell Center at the City College of New York.

66th Secretary of State

Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice was nominated for Secretary of State by George W. Bush on November 14, 2004, and assumed office on January 26, 2005. She served for four years, leaving the position on January 20, 2009. She was the first African-American woman to serve as Secretary of State.

Rice was born on November 14, 1954, in Birmingham, Alabama. She earned her bachelor of arts in political science in 1974 from the University of Denver, her master’s degree in political science from the University of Notre Dame in 1975, and her doctorate in political science from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981.

After her graduation, Rice accepted a position at Stanford University as a professor of political science. In 1987 she served as an advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and in 1989 was appointed director of Soviet and East European Affairs on the National Security Council.

Rice returned to Stanford in 1991 and from 1993 until 1999 she served as Stanford’s Provost.

In 2001 she was appointed National Security Advisor by President George W. Bush, and succeeded Colin Powell as Secretary of State in 2005.

As Secretary of State, Rice supported the expansion of democratic governments, and championed the idea of “Transformational Diplomacy,” which sought to redistribute U.S. diplomats to areas of severe social and political trouble, address such issues as disease, drug smuggling and human trafficking, and reemphasize aid through the creation of the position of Director of Foreign Assistance.

Rice helped successfully negotiate several agreements in the Middle East, including Israeli withdrawal from and the opening of the Gaza border crossings in 2005 and the August 14, 2006 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. Rice organized the Annapolis Conference of November 27, 2007, which focused on finding a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

Rice also worked actively to improve human rights issues in Iran and supported the passage of a United Nations Security Council Resolution for sanctions against the country unless its uranium enrichment program was curtailed.

Another major concern for Rice was North Korea’s nuclear program, and its subsequent testing of a nuclear weapon. Rice was firmly against holding bilateral talks with North Korea, although she welcomed their participation in the Six Party Talks between China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States.

In October 2008, one of Rice’s most successful negotiations came to fruition, with the signing of the U.S.-India Agreement for Cooperation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (123 Agreement), which would allow civil nuclear trade between the two countries.

Shortly after her term as Secretary of State ended in January 2009, she announced plans to write a book about her diplomatic career. Rice was succeeded as Secretary of State by former First Lady and New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

25th Secretary of Agriculture (1993 - 1994) and U.S. House of Representatives (D-MS) (1987 - 1995)

Mike Espy

As the only black student at a newly integrated high school, Mike Espy learned firsthand how to navigate the strict racial division between blacks and whites in his home state of Mississippi. This ability won him a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives—the first held by a black Mississippian in more than 100 years—in his first bid for elective office in 1986. “Service, service, service” was the way Espy described his legislative strategy; he focused on economic development and procuring aid for farmers in his impoverished rural district. His centrist approach to politics won over constituents of both races and eventually earned him a top position in the Cabinet of his friend President William J. (Bill) Clinton.

Alphonso Michael (Mike) Espy was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, on November 30, 1953. He and his twin, Althea Michelle, were the youngest of Henry and Willie Jean (Huddelston) Espy’s seven children. Though Yazoo City was located in an impoverished section of the Mississippi River Delta, the Espy family was affluent. Educated (along with his wife) at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, Henry Espy served as a county agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1930s. He later joined his father–in–law’s family-owned funeral home business. Mike Espy’s maternal grandfather, T. J. Huddleston, Sr., founded a chain of nursing homes and built the first black hospital in Mississippi in 1921. Huddleston, who died in the 1950s, was a local celebrity and one of the wealthiest black men in the South. The prosperous family business initially sheltered the Espy children from segregated public schools. Mike Espy attended a local parochial school through his first two years of high school. After the school closed, in 1969, he transferred to Yazoo City High School. Espy was the only black student, and he carried a stick to fend off racist attacks from fellow students. “Relative to the civil rights experiences of snarling dogs and whips and things it was pretty tame,” Espy recalled of his schooldays. “But I’d always have a fight. The teacher would leave the room, and then you’re among 35 in the classroom and they’d make racial jeers.” A year later, in 1970, Yazoo City High School was fully integrated, and Espy was elected president of the black student body in his senior year. (The white students had their own president.) Espy went on to earn a B.A. in political science from Howard University in Washington, DC, in 1975. He earned a J.D. from Santa Clara University Law School, near San Jose, California, in 1978, and then returned to Mississippi to practice law. He married Sheila Bell and the couple had two children, Jamilia and Michael, before divorcing.

Espy began his political career working in several state government positions. He served as the first black assistant secretary of state, managing the Mississippi central legal services division from 1978 to 1980. For the next four years, Espy served as assistant secretary of state for the public lands division, in charge of enforcing a state law that set aside one of every 36 square miles for educational purposes. From 1984 to 1985, Espy was assistant state attorney general for the consumer protection division. Espy also drew national attention within the Democratic Party when he served on the rules committee for the 1984 national convention.

Following the 1980 Census—nearly 100 years after the last black Representative to serve Mississippi (John Roy Lynch) departed the House in 1883—a statewide redistricting effort created a majority-black congressional district that stretched along the Mississippi River on the western side of the state and encompassed the cities of Vicksburg and Greenville. In 1984, black state legislator Robert Clark came close to unseating white freshman Republican incumbent Webb Franklin in a racially charged campaign. In 1986, the U.S. Justice Department supervised the redrawing of district lines to include more black voters in response to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which called for higher black percentages in single districts. The new Mississippi district, with its slight black majority, was the most impoverished in the country; 42 percent of its residents lived below the national poverty line and five counties had an unemployment rate of at least 20 percent. Studying the 1984 election, Espy believed he could improve on Clark’s campaign. Narrowly avoiding a runoff election, Espy won a 50 percent plurality in the Democratic primary against runner–up Paul B. Johnson, a grandson of a former Mississippi governor, and Hiram Eastland, a cousin of the late segregationist U.S. Senator James Eastland.

In the general election, Espy faced the incumbent, Franklin. Both candidates realized that voter turnout would be key since the district’s population was evenly divided between blacks and whites—particularly in a state where race was still a significant dividing line. For example, Mississippi was the only state that still categorized drivers’ licenses by skin color, and blacks and whites coexisted in generally peaceful, but separate worlds. Social, civic, and educational institutions practiced an almost de facto segregation—black churches held services down the street from white churches; black lawyers served black clients and vice versa; and black children dominated the public schools down the road from the private schools that were mostly white. Combating black voters’ traditionally low turnout, Espy went door–to–door, calling on supporters to volunteer transportation and other services on Election Day. “I need you; I can’t do it by myself,” he implored. “Please sir, please ma’am, turn out, serve as a poll watcher or a driver or a food–fixer. The answer is in your hands.” A lifelong Baptist campaigning in a religious area, Espy adopted the slogan, “Stand by Me, Pray for Me, Vote for Me.” Espy stepped across the deep racial divide to court white voters, too. Describing the balancing act required by his strategy, Espy said, “You must excite your black voters and not incite your white voters.” He promised to combat the agricultural depression that plagued his white constituents (widely known as “planters” in local circles), touting a letter from House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas ensuring him a seat on the powerful Agriculture Committee. The strategy paid off. Espy won 12 percent of the white turnout, while many other white voters stayed home in a show of de facto support. Espy took 52 percent of the total returns to Franklin’s 48 percent, winning his first elective office and becoming the only black Representative in the 100th Congress (1987–1989) to represent a rural district. Asked by a Washington Post reporter how he felt after his victory, Espy responded, “peaceful,” belying the frenzy of national attention. Espy’s ability as a black candidate to attract white voters was unprecedented in a Mississippi federal election. Espy’s election, declared a state newspaper, “did more than shatter the age-old color barrier.… It is further evidence that Mississippi is ready for a change.”

House leaders rewarded Espy with favorable committee assignments for a freshman Representative, enabling him to look after the interests of his rural district. He took his promised seat on the Agriculture Committee as well as an assignment on the equally prestigious Budget Committee. He also served on the Select Committee on Hunger. Espy was re–elected three times. His 1988 campaign was difficult, but he won with 65 percent of the vote. Espy’s opponent, Republican attorney Jack Coleman, accused him of supporting the “radical left” and insinuated that Espy had defaced his home with racial epithets in order to elicit sympathy from voters. In Espy’s next two election campaigns in 1990 and 1992, he defeated Republican Dorothy Bedford with 84 and 76 percent of the vote, respectively.

Espy attributed his electoral success to his focus on constituent service. As a freshman, he sponsored the Lower Mississippi River Valley Delta Development Act, enlisting the aid of fellow Mississippi Democrat and powerful Appropriations Committee Chairman Jamie Whitten, who helped secure $3 million to fund the project. The bill established a nine–member panel to study the region’s widespread poverty and created a plan for economic development along the banks of the Mississippi River. The governors of participating states (Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Illinois) selected the commission’s members. Espy also helped create the Lower Mississippi Delta Congressional Caucus, later serving as its chairman. The group persuaded Congress to pass the 1990 Housing and Community Development Act, which funneled money to underserved areas. In addition, Espy became a spokesman for the Mississippi Delta’s fastest-growing enterprise: catfish farming. He sought huge federal grants for the thousand-acre pools to breed the fish and sponsored a resolution declaring June 25 National Catfish Day. He even persuaded the U.S. Army to serve soldiers catfish at least once a week.

Reflecting the nearly even racial and political divisions among his constituents, Espy embraced the political center to a greater degree than did many of his African–American colleagues in Congress. Espy’s voting record received high ratings from liberal groups. As an active member of the liberal Congressional Black Caucus, he generally disagreed with President Ronald W. Reagan’s focus on the Cold War military buildup and he supported abortion rights. Yet Espy also embraced some conservative positions on social issues: For instance, he was in favor of school prayer and advocated the death penalty for those who committed drug-related crimes. A longtime member of the National Rifle Association—a conservative organization whose primary interest was to protect Second Amendment rights to gun ownership—Espy made headlines as the first federal lawmaker to appear in one of the organization’s advertisements. He also favored U.S. funding for the Nicaraguan contras, who were fighting communist insurgents.

Espy developed a close working relationship with fellow moderate, then–Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Both politicians served on the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist coalition that was shunned by most black lawmakers. In an effort to support self–reliance over welfare handouts, the coalition often sided with Republican-sponsored economic enterprises. The council also promoted “microenterprises,” through which welfare recipients would receive loans from local banks to start their own small businesses. Espy endorsed the idea, noting that similar programs had been successful in developing countries such as Bangladesh and the Dominican Republic.

As one of the first Democratic lawmakers to endorse Clinton’s 1992 candidacy for President, Espy benefited from his election to the presidency. Having won a fourth term in Congress, Espy sought a promotion to chair an Agriculture subcommittee or a seat on the prestigious Appropriations Committee. Receiving neither, Espy reportedly sent the President-elect a memo with the top 10 reasons he should head the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Clinton offered him the post, and Espy resigned from Congress on January 22, 1993, to begin his new position.

Most occupants of the USDA’s top post had been Midwesterners, and Espy was the first African American and the first Mississippian to receive the appointment. As the fourth-largest federal department, the USDA oversaw services ranging from the administration of food stamp programs to farm subsidies. The agency also had a reputation as a top–heavy bureaucracy. Espy directed several noteworthy achievements at the USDA, including improved meat inspections after an outbreak of illness caused by the bacterium E. coli in fast-food hamburgers. He also trimmed the agency’s bureaucracy and provided relief for farming areas following the devastating Mississippi River floods in 1993. However, his career in the Clinton Cabinet ended prematurely when he resigned on December 31, 1994, after being charged with ethics violations. Although he was indicted on federal bribery and fraud charges, Espy was acquitted. He returned to Jackson, Mississippi, to practice law.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-CA) (1973 - 1979)

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke was a rising star in California and national politics years before she won a seat in the U.S. House. In 1966 she became the first African-American woman elected to the California assembly. At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, she served as vice-chair of the platform committee, gaining national television exposure. That same year she became the first African-American woman elected to Congress from California; Burke and Barbara Jordan of Texas joined Shirley Chisholm of New York as the only Black women to that point ever elected to Congress. Burke’s meteoric career continued with a prime appointment to the Appropriations Committee and her election as the first woman chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Perhaps her most notable distinction in the eyes of much of the public occurred in 1973, when she became the first Congresswoman to give birth and be granted maternity leave while serving in Congress.

Perle Yvonne Watson was born on October 5, 1932, in Los Angeles, California, the only child of James Watson, a custodian at the MGM film studios, and Lola (Moore) Watson, a real estate agent in East Los Angeles. Yvonne (she rejected the name Perle) grew up in modest circumstances and at first was enrolled in a public school. At age four she was transferred to a model school for exceptional children. Watson became the vice president of her class at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles. She enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley in 1949 but transferred to the University of California at Los Angeles, where she earned a BA in political science in 1953. She was among the first Black women to be admitted to the University of Southern California School of Law, Los Angeles, earning her JD and passing the California bar in 1956. After graduating, she found that no law firms would hire an African-American woman and, consequently, entered into her own private practice, specializing in civil, probate, and real estate law. In addition to her private practice, she served as the state’s deputy corporation commissioner and as a hearing officer for the Los Angeles police commission. In 1957 Yvonne Watson wed mathematician Louis Brathwaite. The marriage ended in divorce in 1964. Yvonne Brathwaite organized a legal defense team for Watts rioters in 1965 and was named by Governor Edmund Brown to the McCone Commission, which investigated the conditions that led to the unrest. A year later she won election to the California assembly. She eventually chaired the assembly’s committee on urban development and won re-election in 1968 and 1970.

Brathwaite ultimately grew impatient with the slow pace of social legislation in the California assembly and, when court-mandated reapportionment created a new congressional district, decided to enter the race for the seat. The district encompassed much of southwest Los Angeles, was nearly 75 percent registered Democrats, and had a large African-American constituency. In the Democratic primary, Brathwaite faced Billy Mills, a popular African-American Los Angeles city councilman. She amassed 54 percent of the vote to defeat Mills and three other challengers. Just days after the primary, on June 14, 1972, Yvonne Brathwaite married businessman William Burke, who had been an aide to Mills. Less than a month later, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke garnered national media attention as the vice-chair of the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach that nominated Senator George Stanley McGovern of South Dakota. She spent much of the convention controlling the gavel during the long and sometimes-raucous platform deliberations, eventually helping to pass revised rules that gave minorities and young voters a greater voice in shaping party policy.

The convention exposure only added to Burke’s luster, though it was hardly a factor in the general election that November in the heavily Democratic district. Burke faced 31-year-old Gregg Tria, a recent law school graduate, who ran on an anti-busing and anti-abortion platform. Burke defeated Tria easily, winning 73 percent of the vote. In Burke’s subsequent re-election bids in 1974 and 1976, she won 80 percent of the vote against Republicans Tom Neddy and Edward Skinner, respectively.

In Burke’s first term during the 93rd Congress (1973– 1975), she received assignments on two committees: Public Works; and Interior and Insular Affairs. She gave up both of those panels in December 1974 to accept a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, where she served for the duration of her House career. Burke’s appointment to the panel occurred at a time when African Americans began to serve simultaneously on the most influential House committees: Appropriations (Burke and Louis Stokes of Ohio), Ways and Means (Charles B. Rangel of New York and Harold Eugene Ford of Tennessee), and Rules (Andrew Jackson Young Jr. of Georgia). In the 94th Congress (1975–1977), Burke was appointed chair of the Select Committee on the House Beauty Shop, an honorific position that rotated among the women Members.

Burke made national headlines again as a freshman Member when she revealed in the spring of 1973 that she was expecting a child. In Congress, she said, “at that time and you were a woman, everything about you was always open to the press. Your life was an open book.” When Autumn Roxanne Burke was born on November 23, 1973, Yvonne Burke became the first Member to give birth while serving in Congress. The House subsequently granted Burke maternity leave, another first in congressional history. The Burkes also had a daughter, Christine, from William Burke’s previous marriage.

Representative Burke recognized that the civil rights struggle had shifted to a phase in which less overt discrimination must be confronted. “The kinds of things we faced in my generation were easy to understand,” she explained. “Your parents said, ‘They don’t let you sit down here, they don’t let you go to that place.’ Everybody knew. But now it is so complex, so frustrating to young people when they are led to believe that everything is fine, yet at the same time it is not fine.” Minority interests were always at the forefront of Burke’s legislative agenda. During her first term in office she fought the Richard M. Nixon administration’s efforts to unravel some of the programs established under former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, particularly the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), which Nixon had stripped of many of its powers. One of Burke’s earliest House Floor speeches defended the OEO.

Burke also fought for equal opportunities for minority-owned businesses in the construction of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline by adding two amendments to the bill that provided the framework for the nearly 800-mile-long project. One amendment required that affirmative action programs be created to award some pipeline contracts to minority businesses. A later version of that amendment would require that any project funded with federal dollars must provide affirmative action incentives, reminiscent of the legislative technique used by Adam Clayton Powell Jr., of New York, which involved the attachment of antidiscrimination riders to legislation involving federal funding. “The construction of the Alaskan Pipeline will create substantial employment opportunities, and it, therefore, seems desirable and appropriate to extend the existing programs for non-discrimination and equal employment opportunity” to that project, Burke told colleagues on the House Floor. Burke’s second amendment to the bill, the Buy America Act, required that the materials to construct the pipeline be manufactured in the United States “to the maximum extent feasible.” Despite voicing strong concerns about potential environmental problems, Burke continued to back the Alaska pipeline project, believing it would help the impending energy crisis in the United States.

Early in her House career, Burke seemed to take to heart the advice of former President Johnson, who had counseled her as a freshman Member, “Don’t talk so much on the House Floor.” Over time, however, she earned a reputation as a legislator who avoided confrontation and controversy yet worked determinedly behind the scenes to effect changes she believed were important. “I don’t believe in grand-standing but in the poverty areas, if there is something we need, then I’ll go after it,” she explained. Using her experience as a former state legislator in the California assembly, Burke chose her positions carefully and usually refrained from partisan rhetoric in debates. “I took always a lot of pride in my ability to bring people together, to compromise issues, to negotiate issues,” she said. “I was always direct. I was me.”

With quiet determination, Representative Burke supported most major feminist issues and joined the Congressional Women’s Caucus when it was founded in 1977, serving as the group’s first treasurer. She was part of a successful effort to extend the time limit for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment by an additional three years. That same year, the California Representative introduced the Displaced Homemakers Act, which authorized the creation of job training centers for women entering the labor market, particularly middle-aged, self-supporting women who were re-entering the job market after an absence of many years. The purpose of the bill, which also provided health and financial counseling, was “to help displaced homemakers make it through a readjustment period so that they may have the opportunity to become productive, self-sufficient members of society,” Burke explained. In 1977 she vigorously criticized the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortions. “The basic premise which we cannot overlook is that if the Government will not pay for an indigent woman’s abortion, she cannot afford to go elsewhere,” Burke wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece. In 1978 Burke introduced a bill to prohibit pregnancy-related discrimination in the workplace, particularly employer policies that kept women out of their jobs for long periods before and after childbirth.

These efforts in support of women’s rights, along with her prominent committee assignments and her role as chair of the CBC from 1976 to 1977, positioned Representative Burke to meet the needs of what she called her “three constituencies. I had a constituency of African Americans, a constituency of women, and a constituency that elected me.” She was part of a group of Members who were asked to appear at events across the nation in the 1970s. In states “that did not have women-elected Members and who did not have African-American-elected Members—they expected us to go,” she recalled.

Burke never seemed completely at home on Capitol Hill, however. Publicly, she expressed her desire to have a more direct and administrative effect on policy than the demands of her job allowed her. However, associates believed that by 1977 the distance from her husband and her 4-year-old daughter in Los Angeles and the 3,000-mile biweekly commute had left her exhausted and unhappy.

In 1978 Burke declined to run for re-election to the 96th Congress (1979–1981), in order to campaign for the office of California attorney general, the chief law enforcement position for the state (and a position no woman had ever held in any state government). She won the Democratic nomination but lost to Republican state senator George Deukmejian in the general election. In June 1979, California Governor Jerry Brown appointed Burke to the Los Angeles County board of supervisors, making her the first Black person ever to sit on the panel. In 1980 she lost her bid to a new four-year term and returned to private law practice. In 1984 Burke was the vice-chair of the Los Angeles Olympics Organizing Committee. Burke became the first African American to win outright election as an L.A. County supervisor in 1992, defeating future Representative Diane Watson by a narrow margin. A year later, she became the first woman and the first person of color to chair the board. Burke served 16 years on the board of supervisors until her retirement in 2008. In 2012 she was appointed to the Amtrak board of directors by President Barack Obama. She also serves on the California transportation commission.

Georgia House of Representatives District 89 (D) (2007 - 2017)

Stacey Abrams

Politician, lawyer, author and activist Stacey Abrams served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2006-2017. She became the first woman to lead either party in the Georgia General Assembly in 2010, occupying the role for her last seven years in office. Following an unsuccessful run for Georgia governor in 2018, she founded Fair Fight, an organization that helped register at least 800,000 new voters in Georgia ahead of the 2020 general election. In addition to her political career, she’s also published eight romantic suspense novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery.

Born on December 9, 1973, in Madison, Wisconsin, Stacey Yvonne Abrams is the second oldest of Carolyn and Robert Abrams’ six children: Andrea (born in 1970), Leslie (1974), Richard (1977), Walter (1979) and Jeanine (1982). Her parents — who met while working together as teen lifeguards at a racially segregated Hattiesburg, Mississippi swimming pool at the height of the civil rights movement — lived in Madison temporarily so that Carolyn could earn a master’s degree in library science from the University of Wisconsin. However, the couple raised Abrams in Gulfport, Mississippi, where she lived through middle school until the family, in 1989, moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where Carolyn and Robert attended Emory University to pursue graduate studies in divinity and become United Methodist ministers.

Abrams graduated as the first Black valedictorian from Avondale High School in DeKalb County, Georgia, before earning a magna cum laude undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies (political science, economics and sociology) with a minor in theater from Atlanta’s historically Black women’s college, Spelman. She later graduated from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin with a Master of Public Affairs in public policy and received her J.D. from Yale Law School.

At 17 years old, Abrams began her political career as a speechwriter when a congressional campaign committee became impressed with edits she made while typing for them. After Maynard Jackson — Atlanta’s first Black mayor, with whom Abrams had challenged over issues relating to social justice during a televised 1992 town hall at Spelman — created an Office of Youth Services in 1993, he hired her as the only undergrad college student on staff.

Upon graduating with her Yale law degree, Abrams began working as a tax attorney at Atlanta’s Sutherland Asbill & Brennan law firm, where she focused on tax exemptions, healthcare, and public finance. By the time Abrams turned 29, Mayor Shirley Franklin appointed her as Atlanta’s deputy city attorney.

In 2006, Abrams was elected as a Georgia state representative, and within four years, she became the House Minority Leader. After ascending to the highest state legislative role in 2010, Abrams earned the distinction of becoming the first woman to lead either party in the Georgia General Assembly, as well the first African American to lead in the House of Representatives.

During her 11 years in the Georgia House (seven as Democratic leader), Abrams served on the Appropriations, Ethics, Judiciary Non-Civil, Rules, and Ways & Means committees. As Georgia’s then-top-ranking Democrat, she traveled to and met with leaders in South Korea, Israel and Taiwan, and her international policy travel included Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

After leaving her state representative position, Abrams launched a 2018 run for governor of Georgia, becoming the first Black woman to earn a major party’s gubernatorial nomination in the United States. Despite winning more votes than any Democratic candidate in the state’s history (including former President Barack Obama), she lost to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp by fewer than two percentage points and just over 50,000 votes of the more than four million cast.

The election eventually became a study in alleged voter suppression efforts. Aside from running in the race, Kemp’s office oversaw the election, cutting nearly 700,000 names from the rolls in the two years leading to the election, and more than 200 polling places were closed, primarily in poor and minority neighborhoods, according to The Washington Post. Abrams further claimed that thousands of ballots were left uncounted.

Ten days after the election, Abrams ended her bid for governor but chose not to concede to Kemp, citing her belief that voters were disenfranchised. “Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession,” she said in a speech from her campaign headquarters, according to the Associated Press. “Because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.” In the same address, Abrams also announced she intended to file a federal lawsuit to challenge the way Georgia’s elections are run.

Following her election loss, Abrams, in 2018, founded Fair Fight, a voter protection and education organization, which aims to “promote fair elections in Georgia and around the country, encourage voter participation in elections, and educate voters about elections and their voting rights.” Through her efforts, she helped register at least 800,000 new voters in Georgia ahead of the 2020 general election, per NPR, and as a result, Democrat Joe Biden won the state’s electoral votes for President in 2020. (Democrats Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Osoff also flipped Georgia’s two Republican-held Senate seats in a January 2021 special runoff race.)

Abrams had previously founded the New Georgia Project, which submitted more than 200,000 registrations from voters of color between 2014 and 2016. “I started my voting rights activism at Spelman College. I started a voter-registration drive even before I was old enough to vote,” she told students before an early February 2020 town hall meeting in Miami, per The Washington Post. “I was probably the only person who turned 18 in college and got excited to go register and nothing else. But for me, the issue of voter registration is the beginning of the conversation because it is a conversation about power.”

Abrams also helped create the Southern Economic Advancement Project (SEAP), which aims for equality of opportunity, and Fair Count, which seeks to get communities of color, rural populations and other marginalized groups counted in the 2020 Census.

Abrams co-founded two businesses: Nourish, Inc., a bottled-water company with a focus on infants and toddlers, as well as NOW Account, a financial services firm that helps small businesses grow. The idea for the latter sprung from her experience with her beverage company, which couldn’t afford to wait for payment after filling orders, per Time.

Under the pen name Selena Montgomery, Abrams has written eight romantic suspense novels: Rules of Engagement, The Art of Desire, Power of Persuasion, Never Tell, Hidden Sins, Secrets and Lies, Reckless, and Deception. She’s also published her own political non-fiction books, 2019’s Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change and 2020’s Our Time Is Now.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-MD) (1987 - 1996) (2020-present)

Kweisi Mfume

Representative Kweisi Mfume (pronounced Kwah-EE-see Oom-FOO-may), proudly serves the residents of Maryland’s 7th District, which includes Baltimore, Baltimore County and Howard County.

Early years

Mfume was born, raised and educated in the city of Baltimore. He attended Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland where as an honors student he graduated magna cum laude. He later returned there to join the staff as an adjunct professor teaching courses in Political Science and Communications. He was voted the University’s 2013 Alumnus of the Year.

By the age of thirty-one he won his first election to the Baltimore City Council. During his seven years of service in local government, he chaired the City Council’s Committee on Health Policy and led the efforts to diversify city government, improve community safety, enhance business development and divest city funds from the then apartheid government of South Africa. He enrolled in and graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in 1984, earning a Master’s degree in Liberal Arts with a concentration in International Studies.

Congress (1986-1996)

At the age of thirty-eight, he was decisively elected to the United States Congress to represent Maryland’s 7th District, a seat that he would hold for the next decade during the terms of Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton. As a member of the House of Representatives, Congressman Mfume was served on several committees. He served on the Banking and Financial Services Committee and held the ranking seat on the General Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. He also served as a member of the Committee on Education and helped to impact commerce and industry matters as a senior member of the Small Business Committee. While in his third term, he was chosen by the Speaker of the House to serve on the Ethics Committee and the Joint Economic Committee of the House and Senate where he was later elected Chairman.

Congressman Mfume consistently advocated landmark business and civil rights legislation. He successfully co-sponsored and helped to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act, strengthened the Equal Credit Opportunity Law and co-authored and successfully amended the Civil Rights Bill of 1991 to apply its provisions to U.S. citizens working for American-based companies abroad. He also sponsored legislative initiatives banning assault weapons and establishing stalking as a federal crime.

Congressman Mfume served as both Vice-Chair and later Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. He was regularly designated to preside as Speaker Pro Tempore of the House of Representatives. During his fifth term in office, he was appointed by his Caucus as Vice-Chairman for Communications.

NAACP

Kweisi Mfume left his Congressional seat in 1996 to become President and Chief Executive Officer of the NAACP. During his nine years with the organization, he significantly raised the national profile of the NAACP while helping to restore its prominence among the nation’s civil rights organizations. Throughout his tenure he helped establish 75 new college-based NAACP chapters across the nation. In 2000, Mfume worked to negotiate, develop and author the first ever signed Network Television Diversity Agreements with NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox. In 2003, he helped negotiate for and successfully secured the NAACP’s official United Nations’ Status as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).

Return to Congress

Mfume was sworn-in into the 116th U.S. Congress on May 5, 2020, after winning a special election to fill the remainder of the term after Congressman Elijah Cummings, the incumbent representative (and his friend of 42 years), died in office in October 2019. Mfume currently serves on the House Oversight Committee and the Small Business Committee.

Affiliations

Currently serves as Chairman of the Morgan State University Board of Regents
Vice-Chairman of the Board of Research America
Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees
Member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity
Member of the Gamma Boulé Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity
Member of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, 33° Prince Hall Affiliation Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America
Lifetime member of the Johns Hopkins and Morgan State University alumni associations.

Appointments

Appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services as a member on the National Advisory Council of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health.
Received a gubernatorial appointment to the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture

Awards, Accolades & Other Achievements

Previously named “Marylander of the Year” by both the Baltimore Sun newspaper and Maryland Magazine
Recipient of the NAACP Image Award for national leadership
Received a Telly Award for the Television documentary “Ticket to Freedom.”
Performed in concert with opera soprano Kathleen Battle, and with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-CA) (1991 - present)

Maxine Waters

Congresswoman Maxine Waters is considered by many to be one of the most powerful women in American politics today. She has gained a reputation as a fearless and outspoken advocate for women, children, people of color and the poor.

Elected in November 2018 to her fifteenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives with more than 70 percent of the vote in the 43rd Congressional District of California, Congresswoman Waters represents a large part of South Los Angeles including the communities of Westchester, Playa Del Rey, and Watts and the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County comprised of Lennox, West Athens, West Carson, Harbor Gateway and El Camino Village. The 43rd District also includes the diverse cities of Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lawndale, Lomita and Torrance.

Congresswoman Waters made history as the first woman and first African American Chair of the House Financial Services Committee. An integral member of Congressional Democratic Leadership, Congresswoman Waters serves as a member of the Steering & Policy Committee and is the Co-Chair of the bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease. She is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and member and past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Legislative Leadership

Throughout her more than 40 years of public service, Maxine Waters has been on the cutting edge, tackling difficult and often controversial issues. She has combined her strong legislative and public policy acumen and high visibility in Democratic Party activities with an unusual ability to do grassroots organizing.

Prior to her election to the House of Representatives in 1990, Congresswoman Waters had already attracted national attention for her no-nonsense, no-holds-barred style of politics. During 14 years in the California State Assembly, she rose to the powerful position of Democratic Caucus Chair. She was responsible for some of the boldest legislation California has ever seen: the largest divestment of state pension funds from South Africa; landmark affirmative action legislation; the nation’s first statewide Child Abuse Prevention Training Program; the prohibition of police strip searches for nonviolent misdemeanors; and the introduction of the nation’s first plant closure law.

As a national Democratic Party leader, Congresswoman Waters has long been highly visible in Democratic Party politics and has served on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) since 1980. She was a key leader in five presidential campaigns: Sen. Edward Kennedy (1980), Rev. Jesse Jackson (1984 & 1988), and President Bill Clinton (1992 & 1996). In 2001, she was instrumental in the DNC’s creation of the National Development and Voting Rights Institute and the appointment of Mayor Maynard Jackson as its chair.

Following the Los Angeles civil unrest in 1992, Congresswoman Waters faced the nation’s media and public to interpret the hopelessness and despair in cities across America. Over the years, she has brought many government officials and policy makers to her South Central L.A. district to appeal for more resources. They included President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Secretaries of Housing & Urban Development Henry Cisneros and Andrew Cuomo, and Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve System. Following the unrest, she founded Community Build, the city’s grassroots rebuilding project.

She has used her skill to shape public policy and deliver the goods: $10 billion in Section 108 loan guarantees to cities for economic and infrastructure development, housing and small business expansion; $50 million appropriation for “Youth Fair Chance” program which established an intensive job and life skills training program for unskilled, unemployed youth; expanded U.S. debt relief for Africa and other developing nations; creating a “Center for Women Veterans,” among others.

Rep. Waters continues to be an active leader in a broad coalition of residential communities, environmental activists and elected officials that aggressively advocate for the mitigation of harmful impacts of the expansion plan for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Furthermore, she continues initiatives to preserve the unique environmental qualities of the Ballona wetlands and bluffs, treasures of her district.

She is a co-founder of Black Women’s Forum, a nonprofit organization of over 1,200 African American women in the Los Angeles area. In the mid-80s, she also founded Project Build, working with young people in Los Angeles housing developments on job training and placement.

As she confronts the issues such as poverty, economic development, equal justice under the law and other issues of concern to people of color, women, children, and poor people, Rep. Waters enjoys a broad cross section of support from diverse communities across the nation.

Throughout her career, Congresswoman Waters has been an advocate for international peace, justice, and human rights. Before her election to Congress, she was a leader in the movement to end Apartheid and establish democracy in South Africa. She opposed the 2004 Haitian coup d’etat, which overthrew the democratically-elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, and defends the rights of political prisoners in Haiti’s prisons. She leads congressional efforts to cancel the debts that poor countries in Africa and Latin America owe to wealthy institutions like the World Bank and free poor countries from the burden of international debts.

Congresswoman Waters is the founding member and former Chair of the ‘Out of Iraq’ Congressional Caucus. Formed in June 2005, the ‘Out of Iraq’ Congressional Caucus was established to bring to the Congress an on-going debate about the war in Iraq and the Administration’s justifications for the decision to go to war, to urge the return of US service members to their families as soon as possible.

Expanding access to health care services is another of Congresswoman Waters’ priorities. She spearheaded the development of the Minority AIDS Initiative in 1998 to address the alarming spread of HIV/AIDS among African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities. Under her continuing leadership, funding for the Minority AIDS Initiative has increased from the initial appropriation of $156 million in fiscal year 1999 to approximately $400 million per year today. She is also the author of legislation to expand health services for patients with diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Congresswoman Waters has led congressional efforts to mitigate foreclosures and keep American families in their homes during the housing and economic crises, notably through her role as Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity in the previous two Congresses. She authored the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which provides grants to states, local governments and nonprofits to fight foreclosures, home abandonment and blight and to restore neighborhoods. Through two infusions of funds, the Congresswoman was able to secure $6 billion for the program.

She is lauded by African American entrepreneurs for her work to expand contracting and procurement opportunities and to strengthen businesses. Long active in the women’s movement, Rep. Waters has given encouragement and financial support to women seeking public office. Many young people, including those in the hip-hop music community, praise her for her support and understanding of young people and their efforts at self-expression. One testament to her work is the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center, a multimillion dollar campus providing education and employment opportunities to residents of the Watts area.

Personal Background

Maxine Waters was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the fifth of 13 children reared by a single mother. She began working at age 13 in factories and segregated restaurants. After moving to Los Angeles, she worked in garment factories and at the telephone company. She attended California State University at Los Angeles, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. She began her career in public service as a teacher and a volunteer coordinator in the Head Start program.

She is married to Sidney Williams, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. She is the mother of two adult children, Edward and Karen, and has two grandchildren.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-GA) (1993 - present)

Sanford Bishop

Congressman Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. is the Chairman of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. In addition, he serves on the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee and is Vice Chair on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. He has represented the Second Congressional District of Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1993. As an appropriator and legislator he seeks to use the legislative process to create a better quality of life for all citizens by promoting jobs and a stronger, more diversified economy; opportunities for rural areas; better education; safe and secure communities; a clean environment; affordable and accessible health care; sustainable agriculture; energy independence; and a strong national defense — all within the context of a balanced budget.

Congressman Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. is serving his fourteenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Georgia’s Second Congressional District, which covers 29 middle and southwest Georgia counties: Bibb (in part), Baker, Calhoun, Chattahoochee, Clay, Crawford, Crisp, Decatur, Dooly, Dougherty, Early, Grady, Lee, Macon, Marion, Miller, Mitchell, Muscogee (in part), Peach, Quitman, Randolph, Seminole, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, Talbot, Taylor, Terrell, and Webster.

The middle and southwest Georgia legislator seeks to use the legislative process to create a higher, better quality of life for all citizens by promoting jobs and a stronger, more diversified economy, opportunities for rural areas, better education, safe and secure communities, a clean environment, affordable and accessible health care, sustainable agriculture, energy independence, and a strong national defense — all within the context of a balanced budget.

Legislative Record

Congressman Bishop is a leader among the fiscally responsible Democrats in Congress. He believes that the most important way the nation can reduce the federal budget deficit and grow the economy is to get Americans back to work. He endorsed legislation to increase small business lending, extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to provide tax relief to Americans at all income levels while the economy recovers, eliminate the burdensome estate tax, and close tax loopholes that send American jobs overseas. In order to restore the nation’s economic security, Congressman Bishop has supported a Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment; legislation to require any new spending by Congress to be offset by spending cuts and/or enhancing revenues; caps on discretionary spending; and reforming defense procurement and weapons acquisition.

Since 2003, Congressman Bishop has served on the House Committee on Appropriations. At the start of the 116th Congress, he was elected by his colleagues to serve as the Chairman Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. He also serves as a senior member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee and serves on the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee. As a Member of the House Appropriations Committee, Congressman Bishop has worked to ensure that the Second Congressional District gets its fair share of federal dollars to create and maintain jobs, rebuild its infrastructure, strengthen its schools, bridge the digital divide, fund innovative agriculture research, promote national security, and develop communities. Prior to 2003, Congressman Bishop served on the House Committee on Agriculture; the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs; the House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service; and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Congressman Bishop has spearheaded a wide range of initiatives that benefit the Second Congressional District. He has introduced the Disabled Veterans Tax Termination Act, which would permit retired service members who have a service-connected disability rated less than 50% to receive concurrent payment of both retired pay and veterans’ disability compensation. In the 112th Congress, he was the lead House sponsor of the Hiring Heroes Act, which improves programs helping individuals make the transition from service member to civilian employee. The measure was signed into law in November 2011 (P.L. 112-56). In the 111th Congress (2009-2010), Congressman Bishop successfully fought to prevent the U.S. Department of Transportation from banning peanuts on airlines. He also helped over 700 military spouses at Fort Benning keep their career advancement tuition assistance.

In addition, Congressman Bishop was instrumental in securing estate tax relief. In 2009, he successfully fought for House passage of legislation to expand the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains, Georgia. He also worked to promote healthy eating and reduce obesity among the nation’s youth considering military service.

Congressman Bishop promotes the values and morals of Southwest Georgians – “God, country, work, family, and guns.” He has co-sponsored amendments to the U.S. Constitution protecting the U.S. flag against acts of desecration; ensuring a balanced federal budget; and allowing voluntary, non-denominational prayer in schools and other public places. He also supports the Second Amendment, receiving the grade of “A+” from the National Rifle Association.

Congressman Bishop has pushed through many other initiatives of special concern to the Second District, including legislation to name the new U.S. Courthouse in Albany for civil rights leader C.B. King and legislation to rename the main post office in Albany for Dr. Walter Carl Gordon, Jr. He has supported bills to expand and improve the Andersonville Historic Site, as well as efforts to sustain and build new structures at the Second District’s military installations, including Fort Benning and the Marine Corps Logistics Base (MCLB) in Albany. He supported the minting of a commemorative coin honoring the United States Army Infantry, and helped fund the construction of the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center. Finally, he has secured more than a billion dollars in federal grants and loans for communities throughout the Second District, making the area one of the nation’s leaders in qualifying for federal community development funding.

Public Life

Bishop was first elected to Congress in 1992 after serving in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1977 to 1990 and in the Georgia Senate from 1991-1992.

Bishop holds a number of leadership positions. He was a Senior Democratic Whip in the 112th and 113th Congresses. He earlier served as Chairman of a Democratic House Task Force on Homeland Security and the Working Group on Defense of Physical Infrastructure and Natural Resources.

In addition, Congressman Bishop serves as a member of the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally-conservative House Democrats. He is the Co-Chairman and Co-Founder of the Congressional Military Family Caucus. He serves as Co-Chair of the Congressional Peanut Caucus and the Congressional Working Forests Caucus. He is a member of the No Labels Problem Solvers group, “a grassroots movement of conservative, liberal, and everything in between dedicated to promoting the politics of problem solvers.” He is also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Caucus on Coal, Congressional Caucus on Community Health Centers, Congressional Caucus on Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention, Congressional Caucus on Taiwan, Congressional Diabetes Caucus, Congressional Fire Services Caucus, Congressional Fraternal Caucus, Congressional Glaucoma Caucus, Congressional Heart and Stroke Coalition, Congressional HUBZone Coalition, Congressional Humanities Caucus, Congressional JOBS NOW! Caucus, Congressional Pro-Sports Caucus, Congressional Real Estate Caucus, Congressional Robotics Caucus, Congressional Rural Caucus, Congressional Scouting Caucus, Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, Congressional Steel Caucus, Congressional Sudan Caucus, Congressional Vision Caucus, Congressional Zoo and Aquarium Caucus, Friends of Job Corps Congressional caucus, House Agriculture Energy Users Caucus, House Army Caucus, House Biotechnology Caucus, House Military Industrial Facilities caucus, Impact Aid Coalition, International Conservation Caucus, Law Enforcement Caucus, National Guard and Reserve Components Caucus, Out of Poverty Caucus, Rural Housing Caucus, Rural Working Group, Textile Caucus, USO Congressional Caucus, Water Caucus, Heart and Stroke Caucus, Congressional Glaucoma Caucus, Co-Chair of the Congressional Automotive Performance and Motor-Sports Caucus, Expand Social Security Caucus, Military Families Caucus and the U.S. – Japan Caucus.

Congressman Bishop has held leadership positions at the community, state and national levels, including serving as Georgia’s representative on the Southern Growth Policies Board and on the Governor’s Advisory Council on Drug Abuse. For the last several years, he has been named by Georgia Trend magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Georgians.

Personal Background

Bishop was born February 4, 1947, in Mobile, Alabama, and is the son of the late Dr. Sanford D. Bishop, Sr., the first president of Bishop State Community College in Mobile, Alabama, and Mrs. Minnie S. Bishop, a librarian. He is married to the Honorable Vivian Creighton Bishop, who serves as the elected Clerk of the Municipal Court of Columbus, Georgia (court administrator). They have a daughter, Aayesha J. Reese, and a granddaughter, Londyn.

Bishop graduated with his bachelors from Morehouse College in 1968 and with his law degree from Emory University Law School in 1971. In addition to these degrees, Morehouse awarded Bishop an honorary doctor of laws in 2010.

He enlisted into the U.S. Army in 1969 and successfully completed basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. He then enrolled in Advanced Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) training and later received an Honorable Discharge in 1971. He resided in Columbus, Georgia from 1972 to 1996, where he was the primary partner in the law firm of Bishop and Buckner, P.C. He is an Eagle Scout, a 33rd Degree Mason (PHA), a member of the Order of St. John, and a Shriner. He is a resident of Albany, Georgia, where he is a Deacon and Trustee of the Mount Zion Baptist Church.

Congressman Bishop has received numerous awards including the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America, given to Eagle Scouts for distinguished career achievement; the Spirit of Enterprise Award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the Georgia Peanut Commission’s “Work Horse” Award; the Man of the Year Award from the Men’s Progressive Club of Columbus, Georgia; the Friend of the Children Award from the Child Advocacy Coalition; the Charles Dick Medal of Merit from the National Guard Association of the United States; The Order of St. Maurice from the National Infantry Association; and commendations from the Georgia Association of Educators, Georgia Municipal Association, Georgia School Bus Drivers Association, Georgia Council for the Arts, the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the American Legion.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-IL) (1993 - present)

Bobby Rush

United States Representative Bobby L. Rush is a transcendent and influential American leader who keeps his legislative and policy interests focused on the needs of his constituents in the 1st Congressional District of Illinois, with an emphasis on the most vulnerable and the communities that feel left behind. He believes deeply in the redemptive power of the human spirit and in human ingenuity and tenacity. In office since 1993, Rush stands on the shoulders of a long line of patriots and public servants who have gone before him and who are ardent believers in our Constitution. His life is an example of our nation’s fundamental promise and his work reflects a deep determination to bend the arc of government resources and innovation towards the needs of every American — whether they live on our nation’s main streets or its side streets. Rush fights every day for his constituents; to improve their lives, grow the economy, bring jobs to the district, and build a stronger middle class.

Chicago and its surrounding communities are a snapshot of the diversity that is found across America. While large parts of Rush’s district include communities that house world-class health and educational institutions and a diverse array of businesses, there are others where youth unemployment and acts of violence are far too common. Rush has focused on providing a public policy approach to creating jobs, tackling gun violence, and making communities safer. Rush is an honorably discharged veteran of the United States Army and an ordained minister with a Master’s Degree in Theology. Rush has honorary doctorate degrees from the Virginia University of Lynchburg, Roosevelt University, and the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). In addition to his Congressional responsibilities, Rush is the pastor of the Beloved Community Christian Church of God in Christ in Chicago. Rush listens to his constituents with a pastor’s ear and acts on their needs through hard work, empathy, and a commitment to public service. Rush was married to the late Carolyn Rush for 37 years and recently married Minister Evangelist Paulette Rush.

Legislative Highlights

From his very first year in office, Rush has focused on issues of importance to low- and middle-income families and communities. In 1993, as a freshman in the 103rd Congress, Rush introduced bills on issues as diverse as Conflict Resolution and Mediation to Public Pensions and Community Development.

Rush’s track record of leadership on energy issues and his support for small business while serving as an alderman in the Chicago City Council paved the way for him to gain a seat on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee in his second term.

Rush’s attention to detail in crafting national legislation inspired his peers to elect him Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection during the 111th Congress. Under Rush’s watch, important pieces of legislation became law including the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-314). Signed into law by President George W. Bush, this statute is a landmark piece of legislation that provided an effective congressional response to an unprecedented wave of consumer product safety recalls in 2006 and 2007.

Key pieces of legislation that Rush crafted surrounding postpartum depression, women’s health (Sec. 2951 and Sec. 2952 of Subtitle L), and prescription drug offsets (Sec. 7101 and Sec. 7102 of Subtitle B) were adopted in the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148), signed into law by President Barack Obama.

Because of Rush’s leadership over the years on a range of small business issues and community-based lending, Rush was chosen to serve as a conferee as part of the final, bipartisan deliberative process that led to the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (P.L. 111-203). Rush fought hard to help ensure that low- and middle-income consumers would never again fall prey to the ill-conceived, predatory financial practices that led to the near epic collapse of U. S. financial markets in 2008.

In 1996, Rush served as a conferee on the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-104). This law, the first major overhaul of U.S. telecommunications law in almost 62 years, marked the first time the internet was included in the broadcasting spectrum allotment and paved the way for the growth of cable and internet accessibility throughout the nation.

During his tenure, Rush has brought more than one billion dollars to the 1st Congressional District. Through his determined advocacy, he has led efforts to fund major infrastructure projects in the district such as the reconstruction of the Dan Ryan Expressway, the Lovana S. ‘Lou’ Jones/Bronzeville Metra Station, the CREATE Englewood Flyover, the CTA Red Line Reconstruction, and the CTA Red Line 95th Street Station Renovation. Over the years, he has obtained millions of dollars in grants for libraries, museums, municipalities, police departments, hospitals, schools, and programs that support the arts.

As Chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Energy Subcommittee, one of Rush’s top priorities has been to increase opportunities for minorities within all sectors of the energy industry. In order to do so, Rush has introduced the 21st Century Energy Workforce Development Jobs Initiative Act (H.R. 338). This bipartisan bill establishes a comprehensive program to improve the education and training of workers for energy-related jobs, with an emphasis on increasing the number of skilled minorities and women trained to work in such jobs.

Today, Rush continues to carve an effective course of sound legislative leadership that protects consumers, supports our military personnel, creates jobs, expands businesses, and promotes America’s national energy policy. As Rush looks to the future, the needs and interests of the people he serves in the 1st Congressional District of Illinois remain front and center.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-VA) (1993 - present)

Bobby Scott

Prior to serving in Congress, Bobby served 15 years in the Virginia General Assembly where he focused his legislative efforts on creating jobs, increasing access to affordable healthcare, improving education and economic opportunities, promoting evidence-based crime prevention strategies and enhancing consumer protections. Bobby’s legislative successes in the General Assembly include raising Virginia’s minimum wage, enhancing opportunities for Virginia’s families, and establishing the Governor’s Employment and Training Council.

With his first election to Congress in November 1992, Bobby made history by becoming the first African-American elected to Congress from Virginia since the Reconstruction-era. Because his maternal grandfather immigrated from the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, Bobby also has the distinction of being the first voting member of Congress with Filipino ancestry.

In Congress, Bobby currently serves as the Chairman of the influential Committee on Education and Labor. As Chairman, he has sponsored and advanced legislation out of the House of Representatives to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, as well as the PRO Act, which protects and strengthens the rights of workers to organize and join a union. In 2015, Bobby was one of the lead authors of the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act and reauthorized the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Bobby is also leading the fight in Congress to improve equity in education, free students from the burdens of crippling college debt through his College Affordability Act, protect and expand access to affordable health care, ensure workers have a safe workplace where they can earn a living wage free from discrimination, and guarantee seniors have a secure and dignified retirement.

Bobby has also earned a reputation in Congress as an ardent defender of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He voted against the original USA PATRIOT Act and has tirelessly fought to strengthen protections for individual civil liberties and privacy.

As the former chairman and top Democrat on the Crime Subcommittee on the House Judiciary Committee, Bobby is also leading the fight for evidence-based criminal justice reform. During his first term in Congress, Bobby led the opposition to the 1994 Crime Bill and has been working ever since to fix our criminal justice system. He has sponsored the Youth PROMISE Act, which would provide resources to state and local governments for evidenced-based juvenile crime prevention programs.

Core provisions of Bobby’s Youth PROMISE Act were signed into law in 2018 as part of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act. Bobby has also authored the Safe, Accountable, Fair and Effective (SAFE) Justice Act, which has been heralded as one of the most comprehensive reforms to our nation’s broken criminal justice system. The SAFE Justice Act has attracted the support of liberals and conservatives inside and outside of Congress. And in 2014, Bobby’s Death in Custody Reporting Act was signed into law by President Obama. The Act requires law enforcement agencies to report to the U.S. Department of Justice data on individuals who die in custody or in the course of arrest. Recognizing his leadership on these issues, former Vice President Joe Biden appointed Bobby as co-chair of the Democratic Party’s 2020 Platform Criminal Justice Unity Task Force.

On protecting our region’s defense interests, Bobby is an active member of the Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus and is a leading advocate for shipbuilding, shipbuilders, and our men and women in uniform. He sponsored the House version of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, which was signed into law by President Bush in 2008 and has been credited as the largest expansion of veteran educational benefits since World War II. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America has regularly given Bobby an A rating for his work on behalf of our nation’s veterans.

Because of his penchant for working long hours in the Capitol and regularly barnstorming the third congressional district to make himself available to everyone he represents, Bobby was recognized as one of the 25 hardest working Members of Congress by The Hill newspaper in 2010.

The son of a doctor and a public school teacher, Bobby grew up in the southeast community of Newport News and has devoted his life and career in service to our community. He attended Harvard College and received his law degree from Boston College. During and immediately after law school, he served in the National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve. After passing the Virginia bar exam, Bobby returned home to Newport News to practice law. To ensure representation of those unable to afford an attorney, Bobby founded the Peninsula Legal Aid Center. He also served as one of the youngest branch presidents of the Newport News NAACP. Bobby is an active member of many community organizations and is a member of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in southeast Newport News.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-MS) (1993 - present)

Bennie Thompson

Born in a state with a unique history of racial inequality, Congressman Bennie G. Thompson draws inspiration from the legacies of Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry and Henry Kirksey. The Bolton, Mississippi native considers it an honor to walk the path Mississippi civil rights icons paved decades ago.

Serving his 13th term in the United States House of Representatives, Thompson represents Mississippi’s Second Congressional District where he has spent his entire life fighting to improve the lives of all people.

Congressman Bennie G. Thompson is the longest-serving African-American elected official in the State of Mississippi and the lone Democrat in the Mississippi Congressional Delegation.

He began his grassroots political activism being a civil rights champion through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while a student at Tougaloo College – a private historically black college in Jackson, Mississippi. He organized voter registration drives for African-Americans throughout the Mississippi Delta on behalf of the organization before graduating and following in the footsteps of his mother by becoming a school teacher. During his tenure educating the youth of Mississippi, a fire inside of Thompson was ignited pushing him to be a voice to the voiceless through elected office.

From 1969 to 1972, Thompson served as alderman of his hometown, Bolton, before serving as the city’s mayor from 1973 to 1980. During his time as mayor, Thompson improved the city’s infrastructure by paving roads, fixing the water and sewer systems, repairing and renovating dilapidated houses; all while spearheading the construction of city hall and re-evaluating the town’s real estate.

Thompson was a founding member of the Mississippi Association of Black Mayors where he instituted policies and provided services benefiting Bolton’s underserved. The selfless service Thompson provided his hometown was increased when he was elected as a Hinds Country supervisor, a position he held from 1980 until 1993. The then-supervisor’s record of being a pragmatic local servant was embraced by constituents in Mississippi’s most populous county.

His record of effective problem solving and coalition building served as the bedrock for his election to the Congress in 1993, representing Mississippi’s largest Congressional District composed of the state’s capital city, Jackson, and the Mississippi Delta.

Congressman Thompson has channeled his passion for public service into action. In 2000, he authored legislation creating the National Center for Minority Health and Health Care Disparities which subsequently became law. After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the State of Mississippi, he aggressively advocated for disaster relief improvements within government agencies, and provided oversight to ensure that federal funds were properly allocated for Gulf Coast recovery.

The following year, Thompson’s Washington colleagues expressed their overwhelming confidence in his leadership abilities and selected him to serve as the first Democratic chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. As chairman, Thompson introduced and engineered passage of the most comprehensive homeland security package since September 11, 2001 – H.R. 1, the “9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007.”

The Congressman has also served on the Agriculture, Budget, and Small Business Committees while working to level the playing field. Thompson employs a progressive and realistic approach to overcome persistent disparities while being the unabashed champion for civil rights, equal education and healthcare delivery in Mississippi.

Representative Thompson is a lifelong member of the Asbury United Methodist Church in Bolton, Mississippi. He has been married his college sweetheart, London Johnson of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, since 1968. The couple has a daughter, BendaLonne; granddaughter, Jeanna; and grandson, Thomas Gordon. Thompson is an avid outdoorsman and enjoys gardening, reading, and listening to the blues.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-TX) (1995 - present)

Sheila Jackson Lee

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee is an influential and forceful voice in Washington. She is serving her thirteenth term as a member of the United States House of Representatives. She represents the 18th Congressional District of Texas, centered in Houston, which is the energy capital of the world. Considered by many as the “Voice of Reason”, she is dedicated to upholding the Constitutional rights of all people.

She sits on three Congressional Committees — a senior member of the House Committees on the Judiciary and Homeland Security and appointed by the leadership as a Member of the crucial Budget Committee.

In the beginning of the 116th Congress she authored, introduced and saw passage of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Additionally, she introduced several bills including the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant Reauthorization and Bullying Prevention and Intervention Act, H.R. 71, the Federal Prison Bureau Nonviolent Offender Relief Act of 2015, and H.R. 4660, an Amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2015 affirming the authority of the Attorney General to reduce prison overcrowding by developing and implementing lawful policies relating to requests for executive clemency from deserving petitioners.

She is the past Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee for Maritime and Border Security wherein she co-authored HR 1417, a bipartisan bill which has been touted as the best vehicle for accomplishing comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. House of Representatives. Congresswoman Jackson Lee is also the past Chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection which under her leadership she passed the Transportation Security Act of 2007 which increased the funding for America’s transportation security. As Chairwoman, Congresswoman Jackson Lee supported enhanced technology, better intelligence, increased airplane cargo inspections, increased security for railroads, and implementation of the 9/11 Commission report.

She named by ‘Congressional Quarterly’ as one of the 50 most effective Members of Congress and the ‘U.S. News and World Report’ named her as one of the 10 most influential legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives. Also, the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint initiative between the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University named her the 2nd most effective Democrat in Congress during the 114th Congress, the 15th most effective Democrat in Congress during the 115th Congress, and the most effective Democrat in the Texas delegation during the 115th Congress. She is a founder, member, and co-chair of the Congressional Children’s Caucus and authored and introduced H.R. 83, the Bullying Prevention and Intervention Act of 2013. She is past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Energy Braintrust, co-chair of the Justice Reform Task Force, and a leadership appointed member of the International Helsinki Commission. She serves as Chief Deputy Whip for the Democratic Caucus, past Chairperson of the Texas Congressional Democratic Delegation for the 113th Congress, and past Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Board.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee earned a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University with honors in the first graduating class including females, followed by a J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School. She is married to Dr. Elwyn Lee who is also a Yale Graduate and an Administrator at the University of Houston. She has two children Jason Lee a graduate of Harvard University and Erica Lee a graduate of Duke University who is also a Member of the Harris County School Board in Houston, Texas. She is also the proud grandmother of two grandkids (twins), granddaughter Ellison Bennett Carter and grandson Roy Lee Carter, III.

U.S. House of Representatives (D-IL) (1997 - present)

Danny K. Davis

Danny K. Davis was chosen by the people of the 7th Congressional District of Illinois as their Representative in Congress on November 5, 1996. He has been re-elected by large majorities to succeeding Congresses.

In the 116th Congress, Representative Davis has been reappointed to the Committee on Ways and Means. Congressman Davis is a member of several Congressional Caucuses including the Congressional Black Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, the Urban Caucus, the Community Health Center’s Caucus, the Congressional Sugar Caucus, the Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys and Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Re-entry.

Congressman Davis has distinguished himself as an articulate voice for his constituents and as an effective legislator able to move major bills to passage. He has developed a unique and energetic style of communication and interaction with his constituents setting up dozens of advisory task forces to consider significant questions of public policy. He hosts several weekly television and radio shows which feature audience call in and produces regular written reports to every household in the district. In addition, he maintains weekly office hours in the district and is widely sought after as a speaker at conferences and events.

In the 116th Congress Representative Davis is resolutely committed to preserving our democracy, protecting social security, maintaining our nation’s gains in civil and human rights, women’s rights, voting rights, protection of the environment, consumer and labor protections, reducing inequality, and ensuring quality, affordable health care for all, while maintaining his long time focus on issues of job creation, poverty, health care, education, youth and criminal justice reform.

Prior to his election to the Congress he served on the Cook County Board of Commissioners having been elected in November 1990 and reelected in November 1994. Previously, he served for eleven years as a member of the Chicago City Council as Alderman of the 29th Ward.

Before seeking public office Congressman Davis had productive careers as an educator, community organizer, health planner/administrator and civil rights advocate. He has received hundreds of awards and citations for outstanding work in the areas of health, education, human relations, politics and advocacy including six honorary Doctorate Degrees from well known Colleges and Universities. He has traveled extensively throughout the United States and has spent time in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and in South and Central America.

Born in Parkdale, Arkansas, on September 6, 1941, Congressman Davis moved to the Westside of Chicago in 1961, after having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Arkansas A.M. & N. College. He subsequently earned both Masters and Doctorate degrees respectively from Chicago State University and the Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He is married to Vera G. Davis, has two sons, Jonathan and Stacey, and is a member and Deacon of the New Galilee M.B. Church.

Barack Obama

Michelle Obama

Clarence Thomas

Kamala Harris

Lloyd Austin

Marcia Fudge

Michael Regan

Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Andrew Young

General Colin L. Powell

Eric Holder

Condoleezza Rice

Mike Espy

Carol Moseley Braun

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke

Stacey Abrams

Cory Booker

Dr. Rev. Raphael Warnock

Tim Scott

Kweisi Mfume

Maxine Waters

Sanford Bishop

Jim Clyburn

Alcee Hastings

Eddie Bernice Johnson

Bobby Rush

Bobby Scott

Bennie Thompson

Sheila Jackson Lee

Danny K. Davis

44th President of the United States

Barack Obama

First Lady

Michelle Obama

Supreme Court of the United States Justice

Clarence Thomas

Vice President

Kamala Harris

Secretary of Defense

Lloyd Austin

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Marcia Fudge

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator

Michael Regan

US Ambassador to the United Nations

Linda Thomas-Greenfield

U.S. House of Representatives (D-GA) (1973 - 1977), U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1977 - 1979), and 55th Mayor of Atlanta (1982 - 1990)

Andrew Young

65th Secretary of State

General Colin L. Powell

82nd Attorney General

Eric Holder

66th Secretary of State

Condoleezza Rice

25th Secretary of Agriculture (1993 - 1994) and U.S. House of Representatives (D-MS) (1987 - 1995)

Mike Espy

U.S. Senator (D-IL) (1999 - 2001)

Carol Moseley Braun

U.S. House of Representatives (D-CA) (1973 - 1979)

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke

Georgia House of Representatives District 89 (D) (2007 - 2017)

Stacey Abrams

U.S. Senator (D-NJ)

Cory Booker

U.S. Senator (D-GA)

Dr. Rev. Raphael Warnock

U.S. Senator (R-SC)

Tim Scott

U.S. House of Representatives (D-MD) (1987 - 1996) (2020-present)

Kweisi Mfume

U.S. House of Representatives (D-CA) (1991 - present)

Maxine Waters

U.S. House of Representatives (D-GA) (1993 - present)

Sanford Bishop

U.S. House of Representatives (D-SC) (1993 - present)

Jim Clyburn

U.S. House of Representatives (D-FL) (1993 - present)

Alcee Hastings

U.S. House of Representatives (D-TX) (1993 - present)

Eddie Bernice Johnson