The Collective Political Action Committee, co-founded by Quentin James and Stefanie Brown James, was created to support Black candidates running for office across the country and is the largest political action committee to do so. The committee helps fund, train, and support Black candidates, help them find staff, and help them to win.
Stefanie spoke with rolling out about The Collective PAC and why having more Black elected officials is important. She also discussed why more women, in particular, should be in office after a Gallup poll showed 57 percent of American adults believe the country would be better governed if more women held political office.
Why is it important to have more Black elected officials?
We want leaders who can reflect, who can represent, and who can respect our communities. Oftentimes, the people who have the best ideas on how to make changes and how to create laws that will actually benefit us are the people that come from our communities. We are looking for Black candidates who want to help progress Black communities forward through their own lived experiences [and] understanding how important it is that we continue to dismantle all the systematic oppressions that are facing us while also striving to make lasting change.
We also know that when Black candidates are on the ticket, it helps to spur Black voter turnout, youth turnout, because again, when you have candidates that are authentically themselves, that are authentically prideful to be a Black American, they are focused on not just themselves, but on making sure that the community can expand. We’re not a monolithic group of people, so we’re not saying that all Black candidates are the best and that all of them are going to help move us forward. But we are looking for the ones who are truly committed to uplifting Black people, and that is who we seek out and who we hope to support to help them become elected leaders within our communities.
A recent poll suggested that more than half of Americans think the U.S. will be better governed with more women in office. What are your thoughts?
I remember when we started in 2016, eight years ago, which is nuts. In the course of eight years, there has been an explosion of Black women running for office and as we know, traditionally, Black women are the leaders in our household, in our communities, and our charities and our organizations. But we weren’t always the ones that were stepping up to run for office. Part of that is because society oftentimes says, “Well, you’re not suited to represent everybody.” But now we’re seeing Black women like Lauren Underwood and Jahana Hayes, who are representing majority-white districts as Black women, and they didn’t even have any electoral experience before. I think it’s important because again, we’re talking about lived experiences. Jahana Hayes was National Teacher of the Year. She’s now a congresswoman. Lucy McBath, we know about the story of her son Jordan Davis getting unfortunately murdered because of the gun laws that we have here. For her to have that lived experiences as a Black mom, or as a Black nurse or a Black teacher, and bring that to the decision-making board of being elected is extremely important. I agree that we need to have more women, especially more Black women in the political office.
