Sens.-elect Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) will become the first two Black women to serve together in the Senate. Neither Delaware or Maryland have ever had a Black senator. And Delaware has never been represented by a woman in the upper chamber.
Blunt Rochester and Alsobrooks become only the fourth and fifth Black women to serve in the senate and only the third and fourth ever elected. Carol Mosley Braun (D-Ill.) and now Vice President Harris were the first and second. Sen. Laphonza Butler is the third serving Black woman but she was appointed following the death of Sen. Diane Feinstein.
“It’s remarkable to think that in two years, America will celebrate its 250th birthday,” Alsobrooks said during her victory speech Tuesday evening. “And in all those years, there have been more than 2,000 people who have served in the United States Senate. Only three have looked like me.”
“And so I want to salute all those who came before me, who made it possible for me to stand on this stage tonight, whose sacrifices and stories I will continue to carry with me,” she added.