Even now, 158 years after the first Juneteenth, our elected leaders remain overwhelmingly white and male. Even as white women saw marginal gains in political representation, progress for Black women has been infuriatingly slow. Black women candidates for elected office must fight bias on multiple fronts—not just at the ballot box, but all along the way to get there. And party leadership often wants to throw their money behind a less politically “risky” candidate, further entrenching the state of affairs.
We know how crucial representation is to building a new generation of leaders. As intersectional feminists, we have a responsibility to dismantle the barriers to a truly representative democracy.
