This is Part 1 of a Cardinal & Pine series, in which influential Black women leaders in NC talk about the possibility of a Black woman vice president. Read Part 2 here.

Of the leading candidates to be presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, more than half are women of color, according to several outlets.

The pool includes notable lawmakers like California Sen. Kamala Harris and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, as well as New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Florida Rep. Val Demings, California Rep. Karen Bass, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth and former national security advisor Susan Rice.

Cardinal & Pine wanted to know what that meant to some of NC’s most influential women of color, so we asked.

Our first interview was with state Sen. Natalie Murdock. When she was elected in April, Murdock was the first Black woman under 40 to be elected to the state senate.  She takes over a seat that has a rich history in NC’s civil rights movement. Her predecessor, attorney Floyd McKissick, is the son of a civil rights icon in Durham.

[Read more here on Cardinal & Pine.]

The post ‘A Long Time Coming’: NC Sen. Natalie Murdock Tells Us Why Biden’s Choice for VP Matters appeared first on Natalie Murdock for NC Senate.

I reflect on the legacy of those who came before me, those I am honored to call my family and ancestors. As John Lewis, C.T. Vivian, Charles Evers, and Emma Sanders embodied the history and resilience of their ancestors, I, too, seek to embody and honor mine and them.

Emma Sanders was the great-granddaughter of an enslaved worker, daughter of an agriculture teacher and high school principal, Abram Dunbar and Sarah Brown Miller. She graduated from Alcorn State University – the nation’s first Black land grant college. She organized voters and especially groups of young people to disrupt Jim Crow laws and the barriers that kept them disenfranchised. Her family operated Freedom Schools for Black children. Rev. C.T. Vivian was a minister, an accomplice to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and ally to John Lewis, and even the dean of Shaw University Divinity School in Raleigh, NC. He also led the desegregation of a cafeteria in his first protest. Charles Evers was a veteran, Mississippi’s first Black mayor, a leader of the NAACP, and the brother of Medgar Evers. His parents were James and Jessie Wright Evers who were laborers and owned a funeral home and sawmill. He also attended Alcorn State University. John Lewis proudly came from a family of sharecroppers. He was the last surviving speaker from the March on Washington in 1963, a Freedom Rider, a congressman, and the husband of Lillian Miles who was his strongest political advisor. He led the famous march in Selma into the hands of state troopers in riot gear — not unfamiliar to us today. Their stories resonate with mine and so many of us. I was born from a history of teachers, veterans, pastors, farmers, mill workers, cafeteria workers, and activists. Their voices ring in my heart when I stand up for justice.

All four were met with excruciating violence. All four met that violence with courage, bravery, and a vision for a future that liberated them and those who would come after them.

We are continuing the legacy of their work, and we know that we are lighting the fire for those who come after us.

I hope to honor their legacies and continue lighting the flames of justice.

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