THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Carol Moseley Braun
“I never understood why our society would relegate fully half the population to a ‘lesser than’ position.”
Attorney, educator, advocate for social change. The first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992. The catalyst for convincing the Senate Judiciary Committee not to renew a design patent for the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) because it contained the Confederate flag in 1993. Appointed U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa by President Bill Clinton in 1999. Ran for president as a Democrat in the 2004 presidential election.
Interviewed by Kathy Rand, VFA Executive VP, November 2021
Photo 1. Carol Moseley Braun campaign button for the U.S. Senate representing Illinois, 1992. Photo 2. Supreme Court nominee, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (left) is greeted by the first two women to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee – Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL), right – on July 20, 1993 prior to the opening of Ginsburg’s confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Reuters)
More About Carol:
- Veteran Feminists of America
- Select interviews and speeches
- “The Choice 2020: Carol Moseley Braun,” PBS, Frontline
- “Interview with Julian Bond,” Explorations in Black Leadership, March, 2005
- “Meet the candidate and get-out-the-vote rally” for Carol Moseley Braun with Gloria Steinem, 1992. Diane Abt, producer and Jim Morrissette, camera
- The History Makers, 2002
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Carol Moseley-Braun papers, Chicago History Museum
- Cited in Barbara Love’s book, Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, page 326