Politicians
- John Lewis - Congressman from Georgia, first chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
- Andrew Young - former mayor of Atlanta, congressman and first black person to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
- Mary McLeod Bethune - first black woman to serve as head of a federal agency.
- Corrine Brown - Congresswoman from Florida
- Elaine Brown - activist, former chairman of the Black Panther Party.
- Shirley Chisholm - first African American woman elected to Congress.
- John Conyers - Congressman from Michigan.
- Chaka Fattah - United States House of Representatives from Philadelphia.
- Barbara Jordan - former Democratic congresswoman from Texas
- Barbara Lee - Congresswoman representing California's 9th congressional district
- Cynthia McKinney - Former Congresswoman from Georgia, 1993 to 2003 and 2005 to 2007. Presidential nominee of the Green Party of the United States in 2008.
- Thurgood Marshall - first African American to serve on the United States Supreme Court.
- Ray Nagin - Mayor of New Orleans.
- Barack Obama - Illinois State Senator, 1996-2004, U.S. Senator 2005-2008, 44th President of the United States.
- Al Sharpton - political activist and Reverend.
- Charles Barron - New York City Councilman representing the 42nd district, founder of New York Democratic Freedom Party.
- John F. Street - Mayor of Philadelphia
- Sundiata Xian Tellem - political leader of Green Party National Black Caucus and author.
- Maxine Waters - Congresswoman from California's 35th congressional district
- Coleman Young - former mayor of Detroit.
- Sheila Jackson-Lee - Congresswoman from Houston, Texas.
- Jesse Jackson, Jr.- Congressman from Chicago.
Read more about this topic: African American Leftism, Notable African American Leftists
Famous quotes containing the word politicians:
“The American mood, perhaps even the American character, has changed. There are few manifestations any longer of the old American self-assurance which so irritated Dickens.... Instead, there is a sense of frustration so perceptible that even our politicians ... have attempted to exploit it.”
—Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982)
“When politicians and politically minded people pay too much attention to literature, it is a bad sign—a bad sign mostly for literature.... But it is also a bad sign when they don’t want to hear the word mentioned.”
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“I spent my life mixin’ with your breed, and I don’t like it. Get me. You can hide behind a lot of red tape, crooked lawyers and politicians with the gimmes, writs of habeas corpus, witnesses that don’t remember overnight, but we’ll get through to you, just like we got all the rest.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)