“I’ve been discriminated against because I am a woman, because I am black, because I am poor, because I am fat, because I am left-handed.” On an August afternoon in 1976, about 100 people from 14 states gathered at an alternative high school in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco to hear Margaret Wright… Read more →
Category: Run Like a Girl
Speak Up or Shut Up: The Legend of Barbara Jordan
Nearing the blessed close of what has been an absurd Presidential election cycle, one thing is clear: Barbara Jordan would not be here for any of this. Unfortunately, we could surely use her. The “voice of God” before Morgan Freeman was a flicker on a screen,1 Barbara Jordan was one of the most well-known and… Read more →
She Had Guts: Shirley Chisholm
The most important thing to know about the late Representative Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) is not that she was a Black woman who made a serious bid to become the Democratic party nominee for President in 1972. The most important thing to know about Shirley Chisholm is that she was a Black woman who made a… Read more →
Agnes Waters: The Pistol-Packing Mama for President
As racially charged rhetoric takes over civil political discourse and “true” patriots warn of an impending leftist gun-grab, we should be reminded that this type of fear-mongering is not new to the American political scene. Agnes Waters, single-mother and outspoken nationalist, ran for president numerous times during the 1940s and 50s. She relied on exploiting… Read more →
Are We Free to Be President Yet? The Legacy of Pat Schroeder and 1970s Feminism
I was born into 1970s feminism. I came into the world in 1972, the year Free to Be You and Me came out. It must have made a big impression on my elementary school teachers, because I saw the filmstrip version of it in school at least three times. I loved it at least as… Read more →
When Politics Becomes Show Business: Gracie Allen Runs for President
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Radio ratings are slipping for a pair of married comedians. They are looking for a new gag to hook their audience. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the wife — A WOMAN — ran for president?! So started the 1940 presidential campaign of Gracie Allen. Unlike the other… Read more →
The Complicated Legacy of Carol Moseley Braun
Thus far in the Run Like A Girl series, we’ve met pathbreaking women who — with the notable exception of Lenora Fulani — have long since passed on. Today, we turn to recent history, to a former presidential candidate who is very much alive, if no longer politically active: Carol Moseley Braun. Carol Moseley Braun made… Read more →
The Mother of Title IX Goes to Washington: Patsy Takemoto Mink (1927-2002)
When the US women’s basketball team dribbled their way to a 6th straight Olympic gold this summer in Rio, they owed some — if not much — of their success to Patsy Takemoto Mink (1927-2002). Mink was the first woman of color elected to Congress, where she served as a US Representative from Hawai’i (1965-1977,… Read more →
Lenora Fulani: She “Fuled” the Bern
Universal healthcare. Free university education. The regulation of the big banks. No my friends, I’m not talking about Bernie Sanders in 2016. I’m referring to Dr. Lenora Fulani (b. 1950), the most successful female minor party candidate in US history. As a member of the New Alliance Party in the 1980s and 1990s — a… Read more →
Sonia Johnson and Sticking It to Haters
Most women who run for president experience some degree of notoriety. Certainly this was the case for Sonia Johnson, who ran for president in 1984 as the candidate for the left-wing U.S. Citizen’s Party. Although Johnson held a Ph.D. in English, she spent much of her adult life as a Mormon housewife with limited involvement… Read more →