EMILYs List Commemorates Juneteenth

For Immediate Release 

June 19, 2021

EMILYs List Commemorates Juneteenth

Today, EMILYs List commemorates Juneteenth, the day enslaved Black Texans were informed of their freedom two months after the end of the Civil War. Emily Cain, executive director of EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, released the following statement:

“EMILYs List recognizes Juneteenth by building on our work to uplift and elect a pipeline of Black women at all levels of government. We celebrate the history makers and the groundbreakers, including the first Black woman vice president, Kamala Harris, and the first Black woman mayor of St. Louis, Tishaura Jones. As we continue to call out and fight against systemic racism, Black communities continue to be underrepresented in political office, face disparities in health care, and be over-policed and disproportionately punished.

There are currently no Black women in the U.S. Senate, and we still have not seen a Black woman elected to a governorship. However, EMILYs List is confident we can elect more history makers, with Maya Wiley running for mayor in New York City, Cheri Beasley running for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, Hala Ayala running for lieutenant governor in Virginia, Val Demings running for U.S. Senate in Florida, and many more to come this year and long into the future. We recognize that there is difficult work ahead, but EMILY's List is dedicated to electing Black women up and down the ballot whose leadership will show our nation the way forward to a strong, diverse, and equitable democracy.”

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 157 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40 percent of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.