On Tuesday, Jennifer McClellan won Virginia's special election—making her the first Black woman to represent the state in the House of Representatives.
“It still blows my mind that we’re having firsts in 2023,” McClellan said in an interview. “My ancestors fought really hard to have a seat at that table, and now not only will I have a seat at the table in Congress; I’ll be able to bring that policymaking table into communities that never really had a voice before…”
McClellan will join 29 other Black women in the House. There are no Black women in the Senate. “I feel a responsibility to ensure I’m not the last,” she said… She said her commitment to voting rights stems in part from the challenges family members faced in their efforts to vote. Voting officials tried to stop her great-grandfather from voting in Alabama because of his efforts as a Black community leader and teacher, she said. She also said her grandfather was forced to take a literacy test before he could vote.
“I brought those experiences and those stories with me into the public policy arena,” McClellan said, adding that her family’s struggle enabled her to “be a voice that for a long time was missing in the halls of the General Assembly.”U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , Rep. Sara Jacobs and then-Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi leave a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on June 16, 2021.
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