When the results of the 2016 presidential election came in, it became abundantly clear that Black women were the driving force behind Hillary Clinton.
But Black women alone were not enough to tilt the election in Clinton’s favor. The 2016 election of President Donald Trump galvanized women across the country, especially Black women. Black women across the country who never considered a career in politics threw their hat in the ring to help take back the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2018.
But who are these women and how do we find them? Writer Luvvie Ajayi had the answer.
The Black women in politics website was inspired by the election of Alabama Senator Doug Jones. Jones won in part due to the 96 percent of Black women who voted for him. With the help of a Sili Recio, Lucrecer Braxton, and Candace Jones, Ajayi started a Google Doc with over 100 names. The document evolved into a searchable database, which lists over 400 names of Black women running for federal, state and local offices in 2018. Notable candidates include Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Stacey Abrams, who is running for governor of Georgia.
This website’s mission is to make it easier for you to learn more about the Black women running for office: There are Black women running for political office all over the United States, and we need to know who they are. It is abundantly clear that we need to start following the lead of Black women, because we show up and do what is important, even when we are being disenfranchised and sabotaged from doing the work. 2018 is especially important because midterm elections are coming up. We need all the information we can get.
Ajayi expressed on her personal site and on the Black Women in Politics that the database isn’t an official endorsement.
“The goal is to make it easier to find the information we need to support those we have got to support. Remember: You do research from the links provided to candidate websites. Again, the database is not an endorsement. These 2018 elections matter so much (locally, state-wide, nationally) so we need all the information we can get.”
You can find it, here.