“Many of us walked away from 2024, and there was a big fat lie that was told, and the big fat lie that was told was that Black women were unsuccessful,” said Alsobrooks.
Despite the loss of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential contest being met with much disappointment from Black women — 92% of whom voted for the former vice president over Donald Trump — her friend and mentee U.S. Senator Angela Alsobrooks says contrary to what some believe, Black women did not lose the 2024 election.
“I want to set the record straight,” said the Maryland Democrat on Thursday during a rally, where theGrio was on the ground, with Black women leaders and activists outside the U.S. Capitol. “Many of us walked away from 2024, and there was a big fat lie that was told, and the big fat lie that was told was that Black women were unsuccessful and defeated in the last election cycle.”
Feeling despondent and betrayed by the American voting public, Harris’ defeat caused many Black women organizers and political operatives to bow out of political engagement. But on Thursday, dozens descended to Capitol Hill to protest President Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda as part of a day of action organized by the Black Women’s Roundtable.
Alsobrooks, who made history in the 2024 election as the first Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate from the state of Maryland, told rallygoers that she felt “compelled” to tell the group of Black women about their political power and how it made the difference in several election cycles dating back to 1993.
Though Black women’s turnout in 2024 was not enough to send Kamala Harris to the White House, Alsobrooks reminded them that they did send her there in 2020. “Because of your showing up in the way that you did, we elected for the first time in our country’s history a woman of any kind to serve as vice president of the United States, where we have never seen a woman of any race…in that office,” she recalled.
The senator reminded them that Black women also helped elect the first Black woman to serve in the United States, Carol Moseley Braun, who was elected in Illinois in 1993 and served until 1999. However, Alsobrooks noted, “There were about three decades after that when we didn’t see the election of any [Black woman].”
However, in 2016, Alsobrooks highlighted the fact that it was the “actions” and “commitment” of Black women who elected Kamala Harris to the U.S. Senate, becoming only the second Black woman to ever serve in the upper chamber of Congress.
Referring to her own historic election last November, as well as U.S. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Alsobrooks said, “Because you are so super bad and unstoppable, in this election cycle, we elected not one but two Black women for the first time in the history of our country.”
What’s more, Alsobrooks noted that since she and Blunt Rochester were elected, the “largest share of African Americans” now serve in the U.S. Senate at once. In total, there are five U.S. Black senators, including Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and Tim Scott, R-S.C.
“You did that,” said Alsobrooks. “So please do me a favor, and it would make me feel so much better…I knew that my sisters understood this is not only the case that we were not defeated in the last election, it is the case that we are successful.” She added, “You are victorious and undefeated in so many respects.”
Many Black women leaders say they are now back in the fight as they resist the actions of the Trump White House and Republicans in Congress, which include major cuts to federal funding despite already being approved by Congress, the termination of thousands of federal workers, and the elimination or scaling back of decades-old programs and agencies. Black women say their families and communities will be most harmed by these actions.
“While we recognize that there’s this feeling of that deep betrayal, or ‘people are gonna F around find out,’ but we also still gotta continue to build, not for anybody else, not building for other people. We’re building for us,” U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., told theGrio in a recent interview. “We’re building because Black girls and Black boys deserve a country that persists…they deserve to have a safe space, whether that be clean air and clean water, or safe from state violence.”
As a member of Congress, Lee said, “I’m building for them, so I don’t feel I don’t like I’m losing energy because we don’t have time to do that. And this moment is no different.”
Congresswoman Lee said everything that Black women have fought for, whether it be the civil rights movement or the women’s suffrage movement, “has all been leading up to this moment right when democracy is actually under attack.” She added, “So I encourage Black folks to go a little bit farther, Black women go a little bit farther because right now is not the time to lay down arms. Right now is not the time for unilateral Black woman disarmament.”
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