In the nearly 232-year history of the US Senate there have only been 11 Black senators
Congress set a new diversity record this year with its highest-ever number of women and racial minorities, including 60 Black lawmakers.
People of color have historically had a tougher time getting elected to the Senate. Newly elected Raphael Warnock is only the 11th Black US senator since the Senate convened for the first time in 1789. Only two of those have been women. And with the departure of Kamala Harris, the number of Black female US senators is now at zero.
Voters in urban congressional districts tend to be more diverse and politically progressive, driving the higher number of minorities in the House. But that has had little effect on the number of Black senators.
Raphael Warnock and the Solitude of the Black Senator
Raphael Warnock and the Solitude of the Black Senator The Georgia pastor will be just the 11th Black U.S. senator. His victory came amid an attempt to delegitimize election results a pattern for more than 150 years.
By Theodore R. Johnson
Illustration by Dakarai Akil
In late January 1870, the nation’s capital was riveted by a new arrival: the Mississippi legislator Hiram Rhodes Revels, who had traveled days by steamboat and train, forced into the “colored” sections by captains and conductors, en route to becoming the first Black United States senator. Not long after his train pulled in to the New Jersey Avenue Station, Revels, wearing a black suit and a neat beard beneath cheekbones fresh from a shave, was greeted by a rhapsodic Black public. There were lunches with leading civil rights advocates; daily congratulatory visits from as many as 50 men at the Capitol Hill home where he was the guest of a prominent Black
Everything happens too slowly for my liking.
The last times there were strong glimmers of hope of having a woman in the White House were in 1984 (when Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president), 2008 and, most recently, in 2016 when Hillary Clinton made history as the first woman nominated for president on a major party ticket.
Many people were delighted, especially Italian American women like myself, when Ferraro ran. They held all kinds of parties for her. I had the pleasure of meeting her on more than one occasion. I once asked her, “What do you do with criticism?” As a Democrat and a woman, she was getting more than her share of verbal attacks, and this was before Twitter and other social media platforms.