Rep. Beatty calls on Vance at DNC convention
Representative Joyce Beatty called on JD Vance to fight back during her speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Before becoming a congresswoman and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Joyce Beatty served as a state legislator and tried to convince her Democratic colleagues to let her lead.
“They told me I couldn’t do it for two reasons: I’m a woman and I’m black,” said Beatty, a Democrat from Columbus. “I ran against four white men. I won and made history.”
On Tuesday, Democrats celebrated Vice President Kamala Harris making history as the first Asian American and Black woman to be nominated as a major party’s presidential candidate. The official vote was conducted via virtual roll call, but a ceremonial roll call took place at the United Center.
This past has sparked strong reactions. Former President Donald Trump questioned Harris’ ethnic identity in a room full of black journalists a few weeks ago. Republicans have attacked her for hiring a woman with the goal of diversity.
It’s a backlash Ohio’s Black female leaders like Beatty know all too well. But they pushed through, supported each other and brought the country a step closer to Harris’ moment on Tuesday. Several reflected on what the moment meant to them.
Beatty was the first woman to serve as minority leader in the Ohio House of Representatives, and through fundraising and savvy, she helped Democrats regain control of that chamber in the 2008 election.
“You face challenges, but you know there are hurdles, and you know what to do? Jump over the damn hurdles,” she said. “I believe if you’re in the right place at the right time and you work hard, you’ll overcome those hurdles.”
Harris was in the right place at the right time as President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign after a disastrous debate performance with Trump. He endorsed Harris, a woman who Beatty said hung a picture of Beatty’s grandchildren in the White House.
“For me as a black American, this is a very personal issue,” Beatty said. “And now I have the chance to say to my grandchildren, ‘You can do this, too.'”
“In my world that would not have been possible”
Akron School Board member Barbara Sykes was the first black woman on Akron City Council and the first to be pregnant, returning to work two weeks after giving birth in 1986.
“I was pregnant and I went door to door and knocked on doors,” said Sykes. Her daughter with her husband and state senator Vernon Sykes later became a U.S. congresswoman: Representative Emilia Sykes from Akron. “I never thought she would become a U.S. congresswoman because in my world that would not have been possible.”
Barbara Sykes suddenly realized that this was now possible, both for Emilia and for Vice President Kamala Harris, in the middle of the Ohio delegation’s breakfast room. She wiped a tear from her face.
“I’m just overwhelmed. I never thought I could be here and nominate our first black president as a delegate and that she would win,” said Barbara Sykes, who also served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 2001 to 2006. “This is what my parents wanted for me. This is what I wanted for my daughters, and this is what I want for our country.”
“It is a burden for you to be the first”
For Patricia Frost-Brooks, going first is something of a family tradition.
She is the first black woman to head the Ohio Education Association, a union of more than 120,000 teachers, lecturers and support staff. Her aunt, Professor Marian Musgrave, was the first black professor hired at Miami University in 1969.
Now Frost-Brooks, a delegate to the convention, has voted to nominate the first Asian and black woman as a presidential candidate.
“Being first,” said Frost-Brooks of Cleveland Heights. “It’s a blessing, but it also has its disadvantages because being first is a big burden on you.”
Frost-Brooks graduated from high school in 1972, the same year that Shirley Chisholm became the first black candidate to seek a major party’s nomination for U.S. president and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party nomination. She had no interest in politics at the time, but when she saw the documentary about Chisholm’s life in 2004, she realized it.
“I remember thinking, ‘Wow,’ this is going to happen someday, a black woman running for president,” Frost-Brooks said. “And now here we are: a black woman running for president in my lifetime.”
Younger women can say: “I can do this”
Paula Hicks-Hudson was studying at Spelman College in Atlanta, an all-black university, when she heard a speech by Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress. The moment stayed with Hicks-Hudson.
Hicks-Hudson became the first black mayor of Toledo before winning a seat in the Ohio legislature. She credits mentors like Senator Edna Brown for teaching her how to navigate politics and lead with logic and policy rather than emotion. She has seen women paid less and judged more by their hairstyle or clothing.
For Hicks-Hudson, Harris’ nomination is “the culmination of a long journey for African-American women in leadership,” she said. “She gives younger women hope and the opportunity to say, ‘I can do this and be successful.'”
Jessie Balmert covers state government and politics for the Ohio Bureau of the USA TODAY Network, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
