Sisters in the House

Ebony, Sept, 1994 by Laura B. Randolph

If anyone had told me as recently as three years ago that 10 Black women would soon be serving in Congress, I would have said "Yeah, right, and a Black woman is going to fly in space."

Five years ago, both notions seemed out of this world. America hadn't yet heard of Mae C. Jemison, the then 35-year-old physician who became the first Black woman astronaut to travel in space, and the U.S. Congress looked shockingly similar to the crowd at a hockey game - a virtually all-male assembly comprised primarily of standard-issue White guys.

Just think back. Before the last election, there wasn't a single African-American - man or woman - in the Senate. In the 435-member House, you could count the number of Black women on one hand and have at least one finger left with which to make the kind of crude gesture that those obscene numbers deserve.

Last year, however, Black women in Congress more than doubled their ranks. Five new Black Congresswomen joined the quartet of sisters already serving in the House and Carol Moseley-Braun became the first woman of color to serve in the Senate.

The largest number of Black women in the history of Congress, these 10 sisters are a sight to behold. I have seen them turn this bastion of White male power on its axis. Rep. Cynthia McKinney hit the nail on the head when she proclaimed, "We're shaking up the place."

To get a feel for how much and how deeply their mere presence has rocked the nations most powerful old boys' club, just consider the welcome-to-Washington greetings extended to Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun and Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

Though Braun's historic election had been headlines for weeks, when she came to pick up her ID at freshman orientation, she was handed a card granting her all the rights and priveleges the U.S. Congress bestows - on a Senate spouse.

Cynthia McKinney had to file an official complaint to stop Capitol Hill police from regularly stopping her when she tried to enter the Capitol.

I guess the nicest thing you can say about these stories has been said by Rep. Maxine Waters: "The Founding Fathers never envisioned Black women being in this place so every time another one of us comes, we jolt the system just a little bit more simply by being here."

Simply by being here, these sisters have brought a new, and long overdue, sensitivity to the most powerful legislative body in the world. Like the time Carol Moseley-Braun took on the White men of the U.S. Senate. They had voted to renew congressional recognition of an insignia used by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which featured the original flag of the Confederacy. If they didn't know the symbol was an insult to the decendants of slaves, she told them, it was about time they learned it. After they reversed their vote, I got goosebumps when I heard she said of her victory: "That's part and parcel of who I am."

And these sisters are part and parcel of who we are. To quote Waters, "My power comes from the fact that I talk about Black people." And when these sisters talk about Black people, they educate White people. They tell them about the lives they have never led, the indignities they have never suffered, the problems they have never faced.

You bring a different understanding to the table when you are a Black woman who has worked as a maid than you do when you are a rich White man who has employed one. Florida's Rep. Came Meek has this understanding. She has worked as a maid cleaning other folks homes. She has made the transition from minor domestic chores to major domestic policy.

As a result, Meek knows that when you are the grandaughter of slaves (she is), this country must help preserve the heritage of African-Americans and, if necessary (it was), you will fight the entire House Appropriations Committee (she did) to get the money needed to fund the Mary McLeod Bethune House National Historic Site.

When, like Waters, you grew up in the projects as the daughter of a "sometimes single" mother of 13, a mother who sometimes had to support the family with welfare, you couldn't care less (she didn't) whose wingtips you step on if it means pushing through an amendment that authorizes $100 weekly stipends to the unemployed. (She did.)

I could cite a dozen examples of the difference each of these sisters is making but the point is this: Politicians spend their lives defining ours through the laws they make and the issues they deem worthy of addressing. Given that fact, I have slept infinitely easier since these sisters slid their pumps and purses under the power table, toe-to-toe, eye-ball-to-eyeball, womano-a-mano in the struggle.

It's not that I agree with each of them on every question. Where they come down on many matters, I don't even know. But I do know this: when you are a Black woman who has given life to a child, you will think long and hard before you send someone else's child off to war.

When you are a Black woman who knows firsthand what it is like to be sexually harassed, you will be far less likely to treat this issue the way the White men of the Senate treated Anita Hill. Disparagingly. Disdainfully. Disrespectfully.