Visibly Invisible: The Black Women of the Congressional Black Caucus
Description
Visibly Invisible: The Black Women of the Congressional Black Caucus offers a groundbreaking exploration of the systemic barriers faced by Black women in the United States Congress. This incisive study places the experiences of the women of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) at the forefront, analyzing how race and gender intersect to create unique challenges within a legislative body historically dominated by White males.
Through the innovative theoretical framework of “radical imagination” the book examines how Black women fight through intersectional challenges to be effective legislators. These women are presumed incompetent and irrational because their choices as legislators do not reflect the choices of their White male counterparts. From Shirley Chilsom to Jasmine Crockett, the work unpacks legislation sponsored and co-sponsored by these women, which displays self-sacrifice and bullish sophistication.
The text debuts resolute legislative activism: Black women’s determination not to allow their intersecting oppressions to hinder the visibility and viability of their legislative agendas. This is an extension to the legislative activism practiced by the entirety of the Congressional Black Caucus. These women’s persistence is evaluated with qualitative and quantitative measures to display their unparalleled commitment to community advocacy and democracy.
Designed for political scientists, operatives, educators, and students, this work fills critical gaps in Black politics, feminist political theory, and legislative studies, offering an essential resource for courses on African American history, Black feminist thought, and American government. These Black women and their legislative effectiveness remain undermined by structural racism and sexism. Therefore, this work and its comprehensive analysis positions Black women as central figures in advancing American democracy.
In this landmark work, Dr. Sherice Janaye Nelson shatters decades of silence to reveal the extraordinary yet overlooked impact of Black women in the Congressional Black Caucus. Through groundbreaking research, she exposes how these remarkable leaders wielded their “radical imagination” to reshape American democracy, even as they faced the crushing weight of both racism and sexism.
Visibly Invisible: The Black Women of the Congressional Black Caucus charts an electrifying journey from Shirley Chisholm’s historic arrival to today’s powerhouse legislators, documenting how these fierce pioneers transformed grassroots activism into revolutionary policy. Nelson masterfully captures their political brilliance – showing how they navigated the shadows of a system designed to exclude them, yet still managed to champion transformative change for both racial justice and gender equality.
This tour de force is far more than just another political history – it’s an urgent rewriting of the American democratic story. Essential for scholars of politics, civil rights, and gender studies, Nelson’s work stands as both a triumph of historical recovery and a rallying cry for the future. By finally bringing these hidden figures into the light, she reveals not just what was accomplished against staggering odds, but what remains possible in the ongoing fight for true democracy.
– Caroline Heldman, Ph.D. Professor of Political Science Occidental College
Many social scientists compose research to “fill in a gap” in the literature to which they claim to be an expert. They aspire to enlighten society about something not addressed in existential research or to convey something erroneously discussed more accurately. But how does one fill in the gap when the gap is a chasm? The interplay of racism and sexism, which are interwoven into every aspect of American life, make any discussion of Black women in government a monumental task to address, where most only provide toothless theories evinced by obtuse statistics. It takes a once-in-a-century scholar to tackle the chasm of the work and legislative achievements of the women of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in context and with historical accuracy. I guess that makes Dr. Sherice Janaye Nelson a once-in-a-century scholar!
In Visibly Invisible: The Black Women of the Congressional Black Caucus, Dr. Nelson, without question and for the ease of the reader, charts more than fifty years of the intersectional journey of Black women in the highest legislative chamber in the country. Dr. Nelson manages to do this without glossing over any of the women, acknowledging the more well-known characters like Shirley Chisholm while simultaneously spotlighting those whom history often neglects, such as Corrine Brown. Visibly Invisible will be the benchmark for manuscripts that attempt to mark the path of any race-gender demographic in government institutions because while it discusses the systemic oppression often faced by racial and gender minorities, it also transcends the stereotypical conversations of oppression and focuses on the successes and triumphs without performing revisionist history!
– Timothy E. Lewis, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Political Science Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
