When Kamala Harris takes the podium tonight at the in Chicago, she will be carrying the legacy of generations of women of color who came before her. Our party’s faith in her and her rise to stardom indicate that a new political center of gravity is calibrating itself within the Democratic Party — one where women of color are seen, heard, and indeed leading a multiracial democracy. I’ll be in my seat at the DNC convention, knowing that the equation that has led to ascendancy as the party’s first woman of color nominee was formulated by decades of trailblazers.
These godmothers of our movement dared the nation to dream of a politics we have not yet seen—fighting to be included, seeking to represent us at the highest levels, and now supporting a host of policies that could transform America for the better. In 1969, became the first Black woman elected to Congress and, in no short order, the first woman and African American to run for a major party’s nomination for President of the United States. Despite being shut out from televised primary debates and relentlessly bogged down by a difficult and underfunded campaign, marginalized groups rallied behind the “Chisholm Trail.
” Her innovative approach to politics, with a base and brand backed by women, culminated in Chisholm receiving 10 percent of the total delegates. Fast-forward to 1988, when Jesse Jackson’s second presidential bid formed a rainbow coalition that gave us a glimpse of multiracial politics and demo.