Women of Color Gather in SF to Form ‘A Politics We’ve Not Yet Seen’

More than 500 women assembled in San Francisco on Thursday for what organizers billed as an unprecedented gathering of women of color in politics.

“We women of color are the saving graces of our democracy,” Aimee Allison, founder of summit organizer She the People, told female officeholders, candidates and activists from 36 states who gathered at the Julia Morgan Ballroom.

“We women of color are the leaders our country has been waiting for,” Allison said. “It’s a politics we’ve not yet seen.”

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She the People is working with female candidates of color who are running in November’s midterm elections. {snip}

“It needs to be explicitly women of color because when you say ‘women’ in political parlance, you mean white women,” Allison said. “I’m inviting everyone, but it’s time to trust, engage and follow women of color.”

Linda Sarsour, one of the co-chairs of the Women’s March, told the crowd that “if you want to know if you’re going the right way in the movement, follow women of color. … Those closest to the pain are closest to the solution.”

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The conference is “the first national recognition that black women are a powerhouse voting bloc,” she said. “Black women are the strongest progressives, the most loyal Democrats. Moderate whites are an unreliable base of the Democrats, and they’re shrinking in size.”

Allison cited last year’s unexpected victory of Doug Jones to a U.S. Senate seat from Alabama, in which African American voters are widely believed to have provided the Democrat’s margin of victory.

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“Women of color will be the swing vote,” Allison said. “If the Democrats win back the House, it will be because of the enthusiastic turnout and strategy and candidates of women of color.”

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