two years into the Trump administration it was obvious to people why we needed unapologetic progressives in the House. The vile, white supremacist, s… - Cori Bush

I think my daddy bought every Black history book he could find. When we were growing up, he wanted us to know about people like Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Fannie Lou Hamer, W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth. He believed he couldn't leave it to anyone else to teach us these things. And if we didn't know our own history, we would lose ground, he told us. We would fall back into the oppressive conditions that our ancestors had worked hard to change but many of which remain with us today. When we watched television with my dad, it was Eyes on the Prize, Roots, Shaka Zulu, or A Raisin in the Sun. These were difficult to watch oftentimes. I couldn't make sense of why the white people on the TV were angry and violent toward Black people. But I did know, even as a child, that I was going to fight back. (p 11)

I went to Cardinal Ritter (High School). Actually, that was the second school. My first semester of freshman year, I went to a predominantly white school. I was told that I was the number one ranked incoming freshman, and tested to that fact. [They] came to me and said, ‘Oh, you tested number one. We're going to have you retest because we don't believe that's your score. We think that you cheated.’ I think I was still 13 at the time. But I went back into this huge auditorium and retested and ended up scoring even higher. And so they said, ‘Okay, well we believe you now.’ But the way that I was treated when I entered the school, it was so bad I couldn't stay. And that's how I ended up at Cardinal Ritter.

I was that person running for my life across a parking lot, running from an abuser. I remember hearing bullets whizz past my head and at that moment I wondered: “How do I make it out of this life?” I was uninsured. I’ve been that uninsured person, hoping my healthcare provider wouldn’t embarrass me by asking me if I had insurance. I wondered: “How will I bear it?” I was a single parent. I’ve been that single parent struggling paycheck to paycheck, sitting outside the payday loan office, wondering “how much more will I have to sacrifice?”... I’ve been that Covid patient gasping for breath, wondering, “How long will it be until I can breathe freely again?” I’m still that same person... We have been surviving and grinding and just scraping by for so long, and now this is our moment to finally, finally start living and growing and thriving. So, as the first Black woman, nurse, and single mother to have the honor to represent Missouri in the United States Congress, let me just say this. To the Black women. The Black girls. The nurses. The single mothers. The essential workers. This. Is. OUR. Moment.