Record Number of Black Women Running for Congress in 2020

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World Economic Forum: “122 Black, or multi-racial Black women have run in this year’s congressional elections, in America… Black women voters also had the highest participation rate of any group in both the 2012 and 2008 elections.”
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More Black women will likely be joining these Black Congresswomen after November.

  • 122 Black, or multi-racial Black women have run in this year’s congressional elections, in America.
  • At the end of the primary season, nearly 60 Black women remain in the running.
  • According to the Center of Women and Politics and Higher Heights for America, Black women make up nearly 8% of the U.S. population, but just 4.3% of Congress.
  • Black women voters also had the highest participation rate of any group in both the 2012 and 2008 elections.

Joyce Elliott, an Arkansas state senator who is seeking a U.S. congressional seat in November, was the second Black student to attend her local public high school; the first was her older sister. If elected in November, she will be the first Black lawmaker in Congress from Arkansas, ever.

On the campaign trail in June, Elliott attended a demonstration against racism in White County, which is more than 90% white, and spoke to attendees in the shadow of a Confederate monument.

The November election is a “chance to change our history,” she told Reuters afterward. “I really decided I needed to run because I could see a pathway to winning.”

As the United States grapples with a deadly coronavirus pandemic that has disproportionately sickened and killed Black Americans and recent upheaval over police brutality, a record number of Black women are running for Congress.

Elliott is one of at least 122 Black or multi-racial Black women who filed to run for congressional seats in this year’s election.

Read the rest of the story here: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/black-women-racial-diversity-congress-elections-america

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