Carol Moseley Braun

Carol Moseley Braun (born 1947), the daughter of a Chicago police office and a medical technician, grew up on Chicago’s South Side. After earning her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago, she earned a JD degree from the University of Chicago Law School. As a prosecutor, Moseley Braun focused on housing, environmental and healthy policy law.

In 1978 Moseley Braun won her first political race and served in the Illinois House of Representatives. In 1992 primary, she ran against the Democrat incumbent US Senator who had voted to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Moseley Braun won the primary and then the general election to become the nation’s first Black female Senator. During her term, she was also the first woman to serve on the Senate Finance Committee.

Moseley Braun served as the US Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa from 1999-2001. She unsuccessfully campaigned for President in 2004 and for Mayor Chicago in 2011. She subsequently has taught political science at Northwestern University.

Why this stop? The Green Line’s Halsted stop is a mile north of the high school that Moseley Braun attended.

Listen to this recent interview in which Moseley Braun speaks about the erosion of women’s rights.

Fun fact -- Believe it or not, there had been a rule prohibiting women (elected leaders and staff) from wearing pants on the US Senate floor. In 1993 Senator Moseley Braun along with Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) defied the rule with staff women joining in. The Senate Sergeant-at-Arms amended the rule.