With a nod to her mentor Shirley Chisholm, Rep. Barbara Lee exits Congress as a renegade herself

During the Democrat's more than two decades in Congress, she has been the only Black woman elected to the House from California's regions north of Los Angeles.

But it was Lee’s lonely 2001 vote as the only lawmaker against the authorization for the use of military force against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks that indelibly set her apart.

“If you really believe that this is the right thing for the country, for your district, for the world, then you have to do it, and be damned everything else," Lee told The Associated Press during a recent breakfast interview at the Capitol.

“You don’t do that all the time, but there’s some moments when you have to do that.”

As Lee heads for the exit, wrapping up a storied career representing the Oakland area, the 78-year-old congresswoman once seen as an outlier with deeply unpopular positions — her vote against the war resulted in death threats — has watched her views come to be respected, accepted and even emulated. Casting her final vote on the House floor in late December, Lee was met with applause, her legacy a touchstone for a new generation.

Yet her experiences — including losing a Senate primary in March for a seat later won by a then-House colleague, Democrat Adam Schiff, in the same year that voters nationwide rejected Vice President Kamala Harris for President-elect Donald Trump, — also provide a stark reminder of the challenges Black women confront in American electoral politics.

“There are few congressional leaders, public servants, that have served with the kind of courage and tenacity as Congresswoman Lee,” said outgoing Sen. Laphonza Butler, the California Democrat who was appointed temporarily to the seat after the death of long-serving Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

With Butler, Lee teamed up to pass one of the final bills of the 118th Congress, awarding the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously to her mentor and friend Shirley Chisholm, another trailblazer — the first Black woman elected to Congress, joining in 1969, who went on to make a longshot presidential run — in what would have been the New York Democrat's 100th birthday. It was approved by the House and Senate without opposition, and signed into law by Democratic President Joe Biden in December.

A single mom and social worker by training, Lee had been disconnected from politics. She was a volunteer community worker with the Black Panther Party when she met Chisholm. Lee found in “Mrs. C” a new kind of leader who “stood up for people.” Lee got involved in Chisholm's 1972 presidential campaign. Lee eventually worked in Congress and ran for office herself, taking over the seat after her boss, Rep. Ron Dellums, retired.

But as Lee tells it, what's particularly noteworthy about her own career, is that she’s number 20 — the 20th Black woman elected to the House.

“I’m only the 20th one!” she said.

“Can you imagine that? I mean, that’s pretty scary. Black women haven’t had their voices and their perspectives and their experiences reflected in the policies.”

Over and over, she has stories of being among the only Black women at the table — most prominently when she and others pushed Republican President George W. Bush to launch the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to fight global HIV/AIDS. It's an effort that continues to this day.

Similarly, she was an early critic of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds for abortion services with few exceptions in the cases of rape, incest or if the pregnancy endangers the life of the pregnant person. Lee views it as discriminatory against low-income women who rely on federal health care. Hers was a once rare position that has since gained wider support.

“I’ve been at tables all these years by myself, which meant I had to form allies and alliances to be effective," she said, “which I did.”

She explains that as a Black woman, she brings a perspective that is often lost on others, going through life with “antennae” that sense what's going on “because of our history.”

Lee’s antennae were definitely picking up signals on the eve of Jan. 6, 2021, amid the chatter of far-right groups coming to Washington.

“I wore tennis shoes to work that day,” she said.

When the mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and she and other lawmakers were fumbling to put on their gas masks and evacuate the House chamber, she remembers how the House chaplain rose and started praying.

“I said: 'Oh, Lord. This is serious. We got to start praying, too,” she said. Those sneakers “came in handy.”

But it was her vote two decades earlier, in the days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that would ever define Lee’s legacy in Congress.

She agonized over the choice, and said she was as surprised as anyone at being the only vote against the resolution that authorized what she warned of: America's long war in Afghanistan and beyond.

The reaction was fierce and menacing, but also affirming of her conviction. Other Democratic lawmakers crossed to her side and she has since built a coalition, including with hard-right Republicans opposed to overseas military action.

“She’s always dreamed big, she’s always been bold, she’s always had a strength of conviction — and she’s very strategic,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., part of the “Squad” of progressive lawmakers first elected in 2018. “She’s passionate, but not reactive, she’s thoughtfully responsive.”

The younger lawmakers often call Lee “O.G.”

Lee notes there are now several dozen Black women elected to the House — an improvement but, she said, still not enough to catch up for the nation’s 200-plus-year history.

She works with the organization Representation Matters to support women of color running for office, and did so this past election cycle. She backed Democrats Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, who went on to make history as two Black women joining the Senate.

“I got to make sure other Black women don’t have to go through what I’ve been through,” she said.

Lee’s next chapter is to be determined. She spent the final days of the congressional session pushing priorities out the door and finding the next generation of leaders to carry forward her unfinished business, including repealing the Hyde Amendment and the authorization for the use of military force.

“My mother told me that 'can't' is not in the dictionary,” she said. “Shirley Chisholm encouraged me to shake things up, not to go along to get along.”