Posts by amstrat

Massachusetts congressional candidate Ayanna Pressley sent one of her campaign aides to New York last week to help get out the vote for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who stunned national Democrats Tuesday by toppling veteran Rep. Joseph Crowley. Now Pressley is hoping to become the next giant-slayer in this year’s midterms. The first black woman to serve…

The newest star of the Democratic Party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, launched her New York congressional campaign by declaring “women like me aren’t supposed to run for office” — a jarring embrace of her distinction as a 28-year-old Latina less than a year removed from a job tending bar. Her campaign slogan: “It’s time for one of us.” That…

Honoring legendary African-American civil rights activist and journalist Ida B. Wells by officially renaming a city street after her is a good idea. So is changing the name of East Balbo Drive, a four-block stretch just south of downtown named for fascist aviator Italo Balbo. But combining the two — renaming Balbo Drive for Wells, as…

On May 30, 2018, Axios published an article announcing, “Black women feel slighted by the Democrats.” The article explains how African American female candidates, many running for the first time, are not receiving the support or recognition from the national Democratic Party. A DNC spokesperson denied the claims stating, “African-American women are the backbone of the Democratic Party,…

Black women have been leaders in in every moment in U.S. history, from abolition to suffrage to civil rights and everything in between. Resistance without their leadership is futile. Watch this short video featuring Karine Jean-Pierre and learn more.  

This Fourth of July, here’s an American story most of us were never taught. After we had brutally enslaved black people for almost 200 years, some escaped and joined the British army to fight America in the War of 1812—they were called the Colonial Marines. Why join the British? To get freedom. Remember, blacks had…

In late April 2018, Gender Watch 2018 Project Director Kelly Dittmar facilitated a conversation with Karen Finney and Dr. Wendy Smooth about Black women in politics. Read more at GenderWatch2018

Some candidates winning their primaries are frustrated that they still haven’t heard from party leadership. Read more at The Atlantic

A searchable list of 603 black women candidates running for office in 2018 in the U.S. http://database.blackwomeninpolitics.com/

Planned Parenthood Federation of America was founded on October 16, 1916, when Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. in Brooklyn, New York, with her sister Ethel Byrne and Fania Mindell. All three women were quickly arrested (and were then arrested another six times), but that was just the beginning of their…