We hope you enjoy our #VRABlackHistory Series 2024
From the Transformative Justice Coalition and the Voting Rights Alliance
Please note, if you’d like to opt out from only the upcoming daily Black History Month Voting Rights Alliance #VRABlackHistory series, please email carnwine@tjcoalition.org. Unsubscribing at the bottom of this email unsubscribes you to all Transformers, not just from this special February Series.
SNEAK PEAK: Tomorrow’s article will release the full #VRABlackHistory Calendar and will feature what YOU can do to advance voting rights!
The NEW 2024 Article covering all recent voter suppression cases post Shelby, including the recent 8th Circuit decision, will be released not as a #VRABlackHistory Article but as a Transformer Original Article next month as it needed one more time to be sure to be completely accurate! That article will explain how Shelby opened the door for other voter suppression cases and tactics.
The Congressional Black Caucus (1971 – Present)
Its founding, importance, members, history, and present
The Transformative Justice Coalition and the Voting Rights Alliance, in honor of Black History Month, are reviving the daily special series devoted to sharing the legacies and stories of the sheroes, heroes, and events in the fight for Black suffrage. This series was created in 2017 and added 4 NEW articles this year. In addition to these daily newsletters all February long, this series also incorporates daily social media posts; an interactive calendar; and, website blog posts to spread the word broadly.
Feel free to publish on your social media outlets, with credit given to the Transformative Justice Coalition. If you’d like us to share you sharing this series, be sure to send any publications to carnwine@tjcoalition.org so we can repost!
We encourage everyone to share this series to your networks and on social media under the hashtag #VRABlackHistory and to use this series for school projects. You can also tweet us @TJC_DC to share your own facts.
Today, February 28th 2024, we are highlighting the founding of the Congressional Black Caucus and its work and honoring its founding and current members.
There are already great written accounts about the founding and work of the Congressional Black Caucus. Therefore, I am curating all of those wonderful accounts together so you can explore in-depth all the rich history, importance, and work of the Congressional Black Caucus: who founded it? Why was it founded? How has it helped? What actions have they taken?
⮚ How and why was the Congressional Black Caucus Founded? (1955 – 1975)
Creation and Evolution of the Congressional Black Caucus | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
As the number of African Americans serving in Congress grew, a long-desired movement to form a more unified organization among black legislators coalesced. When Charles C. Diggs Jr. of Michigan entered the House of Representatives in 1955, he joined black Members William Dawson of Illinois and Adam Clayton Powell of New York-the largest delegation of African Americans on Capitol Hill since Reconstruction.
Learn about their fight to meet with President Nixon and more!
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was established in 1971 by 13 founding members. The founding members include:
Rep. Shirley A. Chisholm (D-N.Y.)
Rep. William L. Clay, Sr. (D-Mo.)
Rep. George W. Collins (D-Ill.)
Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.)
Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Calif.)
Rep. Charles C. Diggs, Jr. (D-Mich.)
Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Calif.)
Rep. Ralph H. Metcalfe (D-Ill.)
Rep. Parren J. Mitchell (D-Md.)
Rep. Robert N.C. Nix, Sr. (D-Pa.)
Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Louis Stokes (D-Ohio)
Del. Walter E. Fauntroy (D-D.C.)
See Biographies of all the founding members here
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was established in 1971 to put forth policy and legislation that ensured equal rights, opportunity, and access to Black Americans and other marginalized communities. It is a non-partisan body made up of African American members of Congress.
Today we honor Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm #VRABlackHistory
In 2018, last published in 2019 to make room for new articles, we did an in-depth voting rights biography of Shirley Chisholm. Click here to see the #VRABlackHistory article about this incredible woman.
“Incumbency success rates for Members of Congress rose throughout the 20th century for the entire congressional population. African Americans, of course, have been elected in their greatest numbers in an era in which incumbency rates have remained consistently at 95 percent (the rate in 1970) or greater—indeed in the late 1980s and the 1990s it reached 98 percent. While the longevity of all Members of Congress increased, African Americans’ longevity has exceeded the norm. From the World War II era forward, black Members served longer than the general membership. The average length of service for former African-American Members elected between 1964 and 2004 reached 10.1 years—higher than the 8.65-year average for the entire congressional population during that time span.
“Between 1971 and 1975, African-American Members eclipsed longstanding barriers on the three elite House committees: Appropriations, which originates all federal spending bills; Ways and Means, with power over taxation and revenue measures; and Rules, which reviews and structures bills passed by various committees in preparation for debate and vote by the full House. In 1971 Louis Stokes won a seat on the Appropriations Committee, becoming the first of 12 African Americans to serve on the panel in this era (the first black woman, Yvonne Burke, joined the committee in 1975).” (footnotes omitted)
Click Here to View the Source and Learn More regarding Institutional Advancement | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Incumbency success rates for Members of Congress rose throughout the 20th century for the entire congressional population. African Americans, of course, have been elected in their greatest numbers in an era in which incumbency rates have remained consistently at 95 percent (the rate in 1970) or greater-indeed in the late 1980s and the 1990s it reached 98 percent.50 While the longevity of all Members of Congress increased, African Americans’ longevity has exceeded the norm.
Legislative Interests | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
The legislative agendas of African-American Members in the post-1970 era reflected the diversity of their committee assignments and the range of interests within the general membership of Congress.
Today the Congressional Black Caucus continues to be a legislative voice for African Americans and other underrepresented people.
A legislative voice for African Americans, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) traces its history back to the important civil rights victories of the 1960s. Among these victories was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which made illegal the discriminatory practices designed to limit African-American access to the polls.
Our History ” Congressional Black Caucus Foundation ” Advancing the Global Black Community by Developing Leaders Informing Policy and Educating the Public
View a timeline containing milestones of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
⮚ Present: In 2023, the CBC swore in its largest group in history
Click on the YouTube video below to see Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper report on this news on their YouTube channel:
Congressional Black Caucus swears in its largest group in history
“The laws and policies of our nation did not always favor Black Americans, from the earliest slaves brought across the ocean to the Black soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. To those who braved the earliest fights through Jim Crow & Reconstruction, from the Tuskegee Airmen and Henrietta Lacks to the brave front-line workers in the COVID pandemic,” Horsford said. “In the work we do, we honor our history, like the many Black members that served before there was even a Congressional Black Caucus.”
