DEAN ’ S CORNER
THE
JACKIE JONES
I love autumn , its colors and the chill in the air , which signal the changing season . It is a time of shedding and new beginnings .
And this fall , particularly , we are preparing for the outcome of a pivotal and historic U . S . presidential election . The routine political ads , charges and countercharges by candidates , rallies and debates , trigger memories of campaigns past and , especially for history buffs , the roles African Americans have played in furthering civic participation in this country , not just for Black people , but other marginalized citizens as well .
The presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris – the daughter of an Indianborn mother and Jamaican-born father – is indeed historic . She is the first woman to head a major party ’ s presidential ticket . But Harris is not the first Black woman to seek the presidency as the candidate of the Democratic or Republican party . That recognition belongs to New York Rep . Shirley Chisholm , who made a bid for the Democratic nomination in 1972 . While Chisholm did not prevail , her candidacy shook political convention , just as she did four years earlier when she became the first Black congresswoman in the United States .
When she announced her presidential campaign on January 25 , 1972 , at Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn , New York , Chisholm told her audience that “ I am not the candidate of Black America , although I am Black and proud . I am not the candidate of the women ’ s movement of this country , although I am a woman , and I am equally proud of that ... I am the candidate of the people of America . And my presence before you now symbolizes a new era in American political history .”
But even before Chisholm challenged the White male dominance of the nation ’ s leadership , Charlotta Bass , a California journalist and activist cracked the “ glass ceiling ” of American politics in 1952 when she became the Progressive Party ’ s vice-presidential nominee .
Bass was publisher of The California Eagle , the biggest Black-owned newspaper on the West Coast , for nearly 30 years . But her colorful career as a journalist and political activist who often found herself in the throes of what John Lewis called “ good trouble , has largely been overlooked by historians .
Over the years , according to WomensHistory . org , Bass took on issues of racial segregation , housing discrimination and sexism and once confront a group of Klansmen who descended on her office .
Bass became a journalist at a time when newsrooms were dominated by White men who largely ignored issues of importance to those who were not . Her story is a compelling one about the pursuit of racial justice – and her campaign for the second highest office in this land . This issue of the Morgan Global Journalism Review is rich with the political history that Charlotta Bass and other , little remembered , Black women have forged .
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed putting it together . n
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