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Carol Moseley-Braun

Senator, 1993–1999, Democrat from Illinois

Carol Moseley-Braun Image Courtesy of the U.S. Senate Historical Office

As the first African-American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, Carol Moseley-Braun1 also held the distinction of being only the second black Senator since the Reconstruction Era. “I cannot escape the fact that I come to the Senate as a symbol of hope and change,” Moseley-Braun said, shortly after being sworn into office in 1993. “Nor would I want to, because my presence in and of itself will change the U.S. Senate.”2 During her single term in office, Senator Moseley-Braun was an advocate for civil rights issues and for legislation dealing with crime, education, and families.

Carol Moseley was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 16, 1947. Her parents, Joseph Moseley, a policeman, and her mother, Edna (Davie) Moseley, a medical technician, divorced in 1963. The oldest of the four Moseley children in a middle-class family, Carol graduated from Parker High School in Chicago and earned a B.A. in political science from the University of Illinois in 1969.3 Possessing early an interest in politics, she worked on the campaigns of Harold Washington, an Illinois state representative, U.S. Representative, and the first African-American mayor of Chicago, and of Illinois State Senator Richard Newhouse.4 In 1972, Carol Moseley graduated from the University of Chicago School of Law. There she met and later married Michael Braun; she hyphenated her maiden and married names. The couple raised one son, Matthew, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1986. Moseley-Braun worked as a prosecutor in the office of the U.S. Attorney in Chicago from 1973 until 1977. In 1978, she won election to the Illinois state house of representatives, a position she held for a decade. After an unsuccessful bid for Illinois lieutenant governor in 1986, she was elected the Cook County, Illinois, recorder of deeds in 1988, becoming the first African American elected to an executive position in Cook County.5

Not satisfied with her position as recorder of deeds, and believing that politicians remained out of touch with average Americans, Moseley-Braun contemplated running for Congress. Her resolve to seek national office strengthened after witnessing the questions directed at Anita Hill by Senators during the controversial confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court in 1991. “The Senate absolutely needed a healthy dose of democracy,” she observed later, adding, “It wasn’t enough to have millionaire white males over the age of 50 representing all the people in the country.”6 Officially entering the race for the Senate in November 1991, her Democratic primary campaign against the two-term incumbent Alan Dixon focused on his support of the Clarence Thomas appointment and the need for diversity in the Senate. Despite campaign organizational problems and paltry fundraising, Moseley-Braun stunned experts by defeating her two opponents, Dixon and Alfred Hofeld, an affluent Chicago lawyer, when she captured 38 percent of the primary vote.7 Shortly after her surprise victory, Moseley-Braun remarked, “This democracy is alive and well, and ordinary people can have a voice with no money.”8 In the general election, she faced Republican candidate Richard Williamson, a lawyer and former official in the Ronald W. Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.9 Focusing on a message of change and diversity encapsulated by slogans such as, “We don’t need another arrogant rich guy in the Senate,” Moseley-Braun ultimately defeated Williamson with 53 percent of the vote.10 In the “Year of the Woman,” Carol Moseley-Braun became a national symbol of change, reform, and equality. Soon after her election to the Senate she commented that “my job is emphatically not to be a celebrity or a full time symbol. Symbols will not create jobs and economic growth. They do not do the hard work of solving the health care crisis. They will not save the children of our cities from drugs and guns and murder.”11

In the Senate, Moseley-Braun became the first woman to serve on the powerful Finance Committee when a top-ranking Democrat, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, gave up his seat to create a spot for her. Moseley-Braun and Senator Dianne Feinstein of California also became just the second and third women to serve on the prestigious Senate Judiciary Committee. In addition, Moseley-Braun served on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and the Small Business Committee. In 1993, the Illinois Senator made headlines when she convinced the Senate Judiciary Committee not to renew a design patent for the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) because it contained the Confederate flag; the UDC patent had been routinely renewed by the Senate for nearly a century. Despite the Judiciary Committee’s disapproval, the Senate was poised to pass a resolution sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina which included a provision to authorize continuation of the federal patent. Moseley-Braun threatened to filibuster the legislation “until this room freezes over.” She also made an impassioned and eloquent plea to her colleagues about the symbolism of the Confederate flag, declaring that “it has no place in our modern times, place in this body, place in our society.”12 Swayed by Moseley-Braun’s convincing argument, the Senate rejected the UDC patent renewal.13

Moseley-Braun sparred with Senator Helms once again when managing her first bill on the Senate Floor. As one of the cosponsors of a measure for federal funding for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission —an organization established in 1984 to promote national recognition of the holiday—Moseley-Braun helped thwart a Helms amendment to the legislation that would replace government money with private donations. The Illinois Senator evoked personal memories of her participation in a civil rights march with King in the 1960s in an attempt to win support for the legislation.14 The Senate eventually approved the bill. Among her other social legislation triumphs, Moseley-Braun played a prominent role in the passage of the Child Support Orders Act, the 1994 William J. Clinton administration crime bill, the Multiethnic Placement Act, and the Improving America’s School Act.15

During her one term in the Senate, Moseley-Braun addressed an array of issues affecting women and African Americans. She helped create legislation to assist divorced and widowed women, because according to the Illinois Senator, “Pension laws were never written for women … no wonder the vast majority of the elderly poor are women.”16 She also sponsored the creation of the Sacagawea coin to recognize “women of color” and a National Park Service initiative to fund historic preservation of the Underground Railroad.17 A consistent supporter of equal opportunity and affirmative action, Moseley-Braun also spoke out against sexual harassment —as was evidenced by her decision to join five of her women colleagues in the Senate in 1995 to call for public hearings concerning the sexual misconduct allegations against Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon.18

Despite the high expectations following Moseley-Braun’s upset victory in 1992, controversy marked her term in the Senate. Moseley-Braun drew criticism for alleged campaign finance violations which eventually led to a Federal Election Commission investigation.19 In 1996, the Congressional Black Caucus and human rights organizations chastised Moseley-Braun for traveling to Nigeria to attend the funeral of the son of dictator, General Sani Abacha , a private trip made despite the objections of the State Department. Previously an outspoken critic of human rights violations in the African nation, Moseley-Braun reversed her position and defended the Nigerian government.20

Under great scrutiny, Moseley-Braun faced a difficult challenge in her bid for re-election to the Senate in 1998, against Republican Peter Fitzgerald, an Illinois state senator.21 She lost, capturing just 47 percent of the vote against her Republican opponent, who spent nearly $12 million of his own money.22 President Clinton appointed Moseley-Braun as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand, where she served from 1999 until 2001. Moseley-Braun unsuccessfully attempted to revive her political career when she entered the race for the Democratic nomination for President in 2000. The campaign marked the second time an African-American woman sought the nomination. Since 2001, Moseley-Braun has taught political science at Morris Brown College (Atlanta) and DePaul University (Chicago) and managed a business consulting company in Chicago.23 In 2004, Moseley-Braun again made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Further Reading

“Moseley-Braun, Carol,” Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress, 1774–Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M001025.

D’Orio, Wayne. Carol Moseley-Braun (Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House, 2003).

Moseley-Braun, Carol. Shared Prosperity Through Partnership (Washington, D.C.: Division of International Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1996).

Manuscript Collections

Chicago Historical Society (Chicago, IL). Papers: 1992–1999. Senatorial papers.University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK), The Julian P. Kanter Commercial Archive, Department of Commu-nication. Video reels: 1992, eight video reels. Includes nine commercials used during Carol Moseley-Braun’s campaign for the 1992 U.S. senatorial election in Illinois, Democratic Party.

Footnotes

  1. Senator Moseley-Braun served with a hyphenated name during her U.S. Senate term. After she left Congress, she removed the hyphen. This essay reflects the hyphenation of her name at the time of her service.
  2. Current Biography, 1994 (New York: H.W. Wilson and Company, 1994): 378.
  3. Steve Johnson, “Braun’s Win Turns Around a Once-Stagnant Career,” 4 November 1992, Chicago Tribune: 19.
  4. Johnson, “Braun’s Win Turns Around a Once-Stagnant Career”; Sarah Nordgren, “Carol Moseley-Braun: The Unique Candidate,” 26 July 1992, Associated Press.
  5. Current Biography, 1994: 379.
  6. Ibid., 380.
  7. Nordgren, “Carol Moseley-Braun: The Unique Candidate”; Frank James, “Welcome to the Club: Carol Moseley-Braun’s Campaign for the Senate Was Her Own Excellent Adventure,” 6 December 1992, Chicago Tribune: 14.
  8. Lynn Sweet, “A Braun Upset; First Defeat for Dixon in 42 Years,” 18 March 1992, Chicago Sun-Times: 1.
  9. Edward Walsh, “Carol Braun’s Rocky Road to History; After the Upset, It’s Still a Long Way to the Senate,” 28 April 1992, Washington Post: C1.
  10. James, “Welcome to the Club”; Sharon Cohen, “Carol Moseley-Braun: From Face in the Crowd to National Spotlight,” 4 November 1992, Associated Press; Current Biography, 1994: 381.
  11. Current Biography, 1994: 378–379; Thomas Hardy, “Clinton Elected President: Carol Moseley-Braun Sweeps to Historic Senate Victory,” 4 November 1992, Chicago Tribune: 1.
  12. Helen Dewar, “Senate Bows to Braun on Symbol of Confederacy,” 23 July 1993, Washington Post: A1.
  13. Dewar, “Senate Bows to Braun on Symbol of Confederacy”; Steve Neal, “Moseley-Braun Record Is Inconsistent,” 28 July 1993, Chicago Sun-Times: 31.
  14. Mitchell Locin, “Moseley-Braun Tangles Anew With Helms,” 25 May 1994, Chicago Tribune: 4.
  15. Current Biography, 1994: 381.
  16. Lynn Sweet, “Bill Seeks Fair Pension Shake for Women,” 12 May 1996, Chicago Sun-Times: 28.
  17. Alaina Sue Potrikus, “Braun Has Something to Prove in Her Bid for President,” 14 January 2004, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 12A.
  18. Dori Meinert and Toby Eckert, “Moseley-Braun Assailed for Backing Clinton,” 27 February 1998, State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL): 11.
  19. Darryl Fears, “On a Mission in a Political Second Act; Bush’s Record Forced Her to Run, Braun Says,” 13 July 2003, Washington Post: A6.
  20. Fears, “On a Mission in a Political Second Act”; Politics in America, 1998 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1997): 441–442.
  21. Nordgren, “Carol Moseley-Braun: The Unique Candidate”; Jennifer Loven, “Peter Fitzgerald: He’s Heading for Capitol Hill but What Will He Do There?” 7 November 1998, Associated Press.
  22. “Carol Moseley-Braun Says She Won’t Run for Office Again,” 5 November 1998, Associated Press.
  23. “Ambassador Carol Moseley-Braun to Keynote SLDN National Dinner,” 7 March 2005, U.S. Newswire.