WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Barbara Lee has always stood out, a no-nonsense renegade with a long list of firsts.
In high school, she was the first black student to integrate her Southern California cheerleading squad.
During the Democrat’s more than two decades in Congress, she was the only black woman elected to the House of Representatives from the California regions north of Los Angeles.
But it was Lee’s lone vote in 2001 as the sole lawmaker against authorizing the apply of military force against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks that indelibly marked her.
“If you truly believe this is the right thing for the country, for your district, for the world, then you have to do it and worry about everything else,” Lee told The Associated Press during a recent breakfast interview at the Capitol.
“You don’t do it all the time, but there are times when you have to.”
As Lee heads for the exit, concluding a storied career representing the Oakland region, the 78-year-old congresswoman, once considered an outsider with deeply unpopular positions – her anti-war vote resulted in death threats – has seen how their views changed to be respected, accepted and even emulated. Lee cast her final vote in the House in tardy December and was met with applause, her legacy a touchstone for a modern generation.
But her experiences — including losing a Senate primary in March for a seat later won by a then-House colleague, Democrat Adam Schiff, the same year that voters nationwide voted Vice President Kamala Harris for President-elect Donald Trump rejected — also provide a stark reminder of the challenges black women face in American electoral politics.
“There are few congressional leaders and public servants who have served with as much courage and tenacity as Congresswoman Lee,” said outgoing Sen. Laphonza Butler, the California Democrat who was appointed to the seat on an interim basis following the death of longtime Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
With Butler, Lee co-passed one of the final bills of the 118th Congress and posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to her mentor and friend Shirley Chisholm, another trailblazer – the first black woman elected to Congress in 1969 and later going on for a long time To achieve presidential candidacy – on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the New York Democrat. It passed the House and Senate without opposition and was signed into law by Democratic President Joe Biden in December.
As a single mother and trained social worker, Lee had no contact with politics. She was a community volunteer with the Black Panther Party when she met Chisholm. Lee found in “Mrs. C” a modern kind of leader who “stood up for the people.” Lee became involved in Chisholm’s 1972 presidential campaign. Lee eventually worked in Congress and ran for office herself after her boss, Representative Ron Dellums, retired.
But as Lee says, what’s special about her own career is that she’s No. 20 — the 20th Black woman elected to the House of Representatives.
“I’m only the 20th!” she said.
“Can you imagine that? I mean, that’s pretty scary. Black women have not had their voices, their perspectives and their experiences reflected in the policies.”
She repeatedly recounts that she was one of the only black women at the table – most prominently when she and others urged Republican President George W. Bush to launch the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), to combat HIV/AIDS worldwide. It is an effort that continues to this day.
Likewise, she was an early critic of the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortion services with few exceptions in cases of rape, incest or when the pregnancy endangers the life of the pregnant person. Lee sees this as discrimination against low-income women who rely on public health care. Their once occasional position has now found broader support.
“I sat at tables alone all these years, which meant I had to build allies and alliances to be effective,” she said, “which I did.”
She explains that as a black woman, she brings a perspective often lost to others, and that she goes through life with “antennas” that sense what’s going on “because of our history.”
Lee’s antennae definitely picked up signals on the eve of January 6, 2021, amid the chatter of right-wing extremist groups descending on Washington.
“I wore tennis shoes to work that day,” she said.
As the mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and she and other lawmakers scrambled to put on their gas masks and evacuate the House chamber, she remembers the House chaplain standing up and beginning to pray.
“I said, ‘Oh Lord. This is serious. We also need to start praying,” she said. Those sneakers “came in handy.”
But it was her voice two decades earlier, in the days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that would define Lee’s legacy in Congress.
She agonized over the decision, saying she was as surprised as anyone that she was the only one to vote against the resolution that confirmed what she warned about: America’s long war in Afghanistan and beyond.
The reaction was violent and threatening, but it also confirmed her beliefs. Other Democratic lawmakers sided with her, and she has since formed a coalition, including with far-right Republicans who oppose military action abroad.
“She’s always had big dreams, she’s always been brave, she’s always had strong persuasion — and she’s very strategic,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., part of the “squad” of progressive lawmakers who were first elected in 2018 became. “She’s passionate but not reactive, she’s considerate.”
The younger lawmakers often call Lee “OG.”
Lee points out that several dozen black women have now been elected to the House of Representatives — an improvement, but in her view still not enough to catch up with the country’s more than 200 years of history.
She works with the organization Representation Matters to support women of color running for office and did so during the past election cycle. She supported Democrats Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, who made history when two black women entered the Senate.
“I need to make sure other black women don’t have to go through what I went through,” she said.
Lee’s next chapter has yet to be determined. She spent the final days of the congressional session pushing aside priorities and finding the next generation of leaders to advance her unfinished business, including repealing the Hyde Amendment and authorizing the apply of military force.
“My mother told me ‘can’t’ isn’t in the dictionary,” she said. “Shirley Chisholm encouraged me to shake things up and not participate in order to get along.”
