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Carol Moseley

Explorations in Black Leadership: Carol Moseley Braun

Julian Bond, professor of history at the University of Virginia, sits down with Carol Moseley Braun, former Illinois Senator and to date the only African-American woman elected to the Senate, in a conversation about race relations, her career and the role of everyday people in achieving a just society.

Carol Moseley Braun

Sen._Carol_Moseley_Braun (1)Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun, also sometimes Moseley-Braun (born August 16, 1947), is an American politician and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999. She was the first female African-American Senator, the first African-American U.S. Senator for the Democratic Party, the first woman to defeat an incumbent U.S. Senator in an election, and the first female Senator from Illinois. She was the only female U.S. Senator from Illinois until Tammy Duckworth who became the U.S. Senator from Illinois in January 2017. From 1999 until 2001, she was the United States Ambassador to New Zealand. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Following the public announcement by Richard M. Daley that he would not seek re-election, in November 2010, Braun began her campaign for Mayor of Chicago. The former Senator placed fourth in a field of six candidates, losing the February 22, 2011, election to Rahm Emanuel.

Early Life

Carol Elizabeth Moseley was born in Chicago, Illinois. She attended public and parochial schools. She attended Ruggles School for elementary school, and she attended Parker High School (now the site of Paul Robeson High School) in Chicago. Her father, Joseph J. Moseley, was a Chicago police officer and apple guard and her mother, Edna A. (Davie), was a medical technician in a hospital. Both her parents were Catholic. The family lived in a segregated middle-class neighborhood in the South Side of Chicago. Her parents divorced when she was in her teens, and she lived with her grandmother. She began her undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, but dropped out after four months. She then majored in political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, graduating in 1969 and earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Moseley_Braun

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