Jennifer McClellan’s Historic Election Makes Her Virginia’s First Black Congresswoman, The timing of McClellan’s win during Black History Month and days ahead Women’s History Month couldn’t have been more significant.
Virginia’s new Est member of the U.S. Congress is Jennifer McClellan, whose major election Tuesday night gives her the important distinction of being the first- ever Black woman tagged in Virginia to the U.S. House of Representatives.
McClellan won the special election to fill the U.S. Congressional seat of late Rep. Donald McEachin, who failed in November following complications from cancer weeks after he was reelected. The Democrat who served in Virginia’s General Assembly for 18 times trounced her Popular opponent Leon Benjamin with nearly 75 of the vote and 95 of the firmaments returning votes, the Richmond Times Dispatch reported.
McClellan pledged to serve her time in Congress just like McEachin, who she has previously described as a political preceptor. “ I will carry on his heritage, ” McClellan told backers after her win was declared.
“ We ’ve done a lot of good also in Richmond in the state house, ” McClellan added. “ Whether it was passing the Voting Rights Act of Virginia passing the Virginia Clean Economy Act passing the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights all of that work needs to be done in Washington. Just as I worked to carry those across the finish line, I will work to do the same in Congress. ”
The timing of McClellan’s win during Black History Month and days before Women’s History Month could not have been more significant. “ It’s time for a Black woman’s voice to be heard in the Virginia congressional delegation, and the perspective that brings, ” McClellan said back when she declared her training for McEachin’s seat.
McClellan previously ran to be Virginia’s governor in an trouble to replace Popular Gov. Ralph North am, whose term was marked by a blackface reproach. She spoke with News One in 2021 about her major gubernatorial training.
“ While my training is major, this is not a moment about me, ” McClellan told News One at the time. “ This is a mobility about the unborn Virginia that will crop from these heads stronger and further united than ever. I ’m honored and excited that a little girl who grew up in Virginia from parents who grew up in the Depression can lead that healing. ”
McClellan added “ At my core, I am a slavish leader who sees pain and wants to heal it, sees problems and wants to fix them. Virginia really is, like our country, we ’re at a crossroads of four heads. The worst health epidemic in 100 times, the worst profitable extremity since the Great Depression, reckoning with racial injustice, and a lot of people who have lost faith in government’s capability to understand their problems, let alone break them.
I ’m running because I hear the call to help people and lead us through these heads in a way that brings us together, and gives judicious, and addresses inequity, and begins to heal from 400 times of trauma that has all culminated up to this point. ”
