Charlene Mitchell (1930-present) was the first Black woman to run for president of the United States. She ran on the Communist ticket, stating that she saw racism and class injustice as symptoms of the capitalist system.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
As we gear up for the election on November 3rd, we’re spending the month highlighting politicians from around the world and throughout history. It’s vital that we look back and appreciate the people who shaped our present, in good ways and more complicated ones, especially as we think about who we want to elect to shape our future.
Today’s Politician was the first Black woman to run for president of the United States. She ran on the Communist ticket, stating that she saw racism and class injustice as symptoms of the capitalist system. Let’s talk about Charlene Mitchell.
Charlene was born in 1930 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Both of her parents were born in the South and migrated north. Charlene’s father, a laborer and railroad worker, set a precedent for his daughter’s activism-- he became involved in local politics and later joined the Communist party.
From a young age, Charlene had the spirit of an activist. She says one of her first brushes with protest came at the age of seven. She was tasked by her ill mother to bring a basket of items to her father, who was, at the time, in jail. She transferred several buses before arriving just before the end of visiting hours. When guards declined her entry, she demanded they let her in, until, finally, she got to see her father and hand over the basket safely.
While she was a child, Charlene’s family moved to Chicago. There, she grew up in the Cabrini Row Houses, a racially integrated public housing project on the Near North Side. It was in this same neighborhood that Charlene took part in one of her first experiences with organized activism. She participated in a sit-in at Chicago’s Windsor Theater to end segregated seating.
In 1943, at the age of 13, Charlene joined the youth wing of the American Communist Party.. By 1957, she’d been elected as the youngest person ever to serve on the party’s national committee.
In the 50s and 60s, Charlene became one of the most influential leaders of the Communist Party. She helped to develop connections between the party and African American labor activists. She also introduced leaders to a wider ideological lens, including political theories of the Black diaspora and third world. She cultivated an international political perspective, traveling to and making lasting connections with Communist party leaders in London and South Africa.
In the 60s, the American Communist Party began to lose its already limited influence, but Charlene remained an important political figure. In 1968, she was officially nominated as the party’s candidate for president. The nomination made her the first African American woman to run for president.
Still, this landmark was not recognized as an achievement by most mainstream media. Because Charlene was running on the Communist party ticket, she was never going to be a huge success. Much of the media coverage seemed to belittle her run as a symbolic gesture; the Chicago Tribune, for example, printed that her nomination was a move to, “dramatize what the Communists perceive to be the nation’s major discontents.”
Charlene’s campaign set up shop at the Frederick Douglass bookstore in Boston.
Charlene’s run had fairly limited reach-- she was on the ballot in just two states. But she saw her run less as a numbers game and more of a matter of engaging the public. She said success would come in the form of presenting the Communist platform to Americans as a means of solving some of the problems in the nation.
Specifically, she sought to demonstrate that many of the nation’s social problems were byproducts and mechanisms of the capitalist system. She is quoted as saying “replacing white capitalism with Black capitalism isn’t going to solve the problems of poverty: the problems of poverty are rooted in the nature of capitalism itself.”
Her campaign, though short-lived, created a network of connections between various activist causes: she helped connect the anti-colonial and Black liberation ideologies of the 1950s to Black feminist movements in the following decade. In 1971, she also spearheaded the campaign to free Angela Davis from jail.
Today, Charlene is still connected to the activist movements and communities she helped to create. Her presidential campaign marked a first in the political world and paved the way for other Black women politicians, like Shirley Chisholm, to run years later. An activist since birth, Charlene has consistently challenged pre existing structures throughout her political career.
All month, we’re talking about Politicians. For more on why we’re doing what we’re doing check out our newsletter Womannica Weekly. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @encyclopediawomannica and follow me directly on twitter @jennymkaplan.
Special thanks to my favorite sister and co-creator, Liz Kaplan.
Talk to you tomorrow!