I know the crucial role community health centers play in keeping our most vulnerable neighbors healthy from both sides. When I was uninsured, I relied on a community health center to provide my health care.Collection: Health
We must invest in affordable housing, quality education, safe parks and green space, good paying jobs, comprehensive mental health and trauma services, and other supports that will help all of our people.Collection: Space
Dr. Henry Givens, Jr. led Harris-Stowe State University for 32 years. His leadership transformed Harris-Stowe, the university I attended, from a small college with just one building into the nationally acclaimed HBCU that it is today.Collection: Leadership
Freedom cannot be a responsibility that only belongs to some of us.Collection: Freedom
I'm running for Congress to represent Missouri's 1st because we need leadership that is truly invested in helping us become stronger and safer. I'm running because I have a commitment to every member of my community.Collection: Leadership
We treat Black and brown kids who can't vote yet, can't join the military, can't rent a car or even buy a lottery ticket - like adults in our criminal legal system. We deprive them of their joy and their youth. Children who deserve to live rich and abundant lives.Collection: Car
The unhoused crisis in our country is a public health emergency, and a moral and policy failure at every level of our government.Collection: Failure
Racism is not just slavery and Jim Crow. It is the daily violence that is enacted on our communities each and every day we live in this White supremacist society.Collection: Society
Housing is a human right, not a bargaining chip to let fall between bureaucratic cracks.
Freedom is not simply intended to mean freedom from enslavement. Freedom is an affirmative goal, it is one that promises liberation, safety, and peace of mind. It is the promise of a full, prosperous, and joyous life.
There is no place for the death penalty in a just, humane society.
An act of Congress could abolish the federal death penalty once and for all, and my sister in service, Representative Ayanna Pressley, has introduced a bill that would do just that.
Leading with love starts with what we say, the words we use and the meaning behind them.
We must dedicate ourselves to the fundamental principles of liberty and justice that animate our laws and our governance.
We are committed to ensuring that immigration is not further criminalized and that all immigrants are treated with dignity and provided with a path to citizenship.
Words can build up communities or break them down.
Leading from a place of hate only fuels hateful and violent acts across our country.
When our community is under-represented, its people don't receive the resources and attention they need to thrive.
St. Louis sent me to Congress to save lives.
One of the most important lessons that I learned in Ferguson was that in a true movement, everyone leads in some way. We need leaders with a shared vision, yes - but with a whole spectrum of skills, in every possible field.
Black and brown people in communities like mine, when arrested are more likely to be convicted and receive harsher sentences than our white counterparts. A justice system that actually hands out justice isn't as cruel, violent and racially biased as the one we've got.
I decided to run for office because I've seen that elected officials would rather let us suffer than put in the work to actually fight for us.
Every day Black women are subjected to harsh and racist treatment during pregnancy and childbirth. Every day Black women die because the system denies our humanity. It denies us patient care.
I dreamed of being a nurse because I wanted to tangibly help the people I saw every day.
We cannot denounce white supremacy and allow its endorsers to continue serving in our government.
We faced police dogs when we fought for justice for Mike Brown in Ferguson in 2014.
My skin burned for 22 hours after I was pepper-sprayed.
We have a deeply rooted misconception in our country that unhoused people have done something to deserve their conditions - when the reality is that unhoused people are living the consequences of our government's failure to secure the basic necessities people need to survive.
Many unhoused people work full time but earn starvation, unlivable wages. Some struggle to access mental health services or substance use treatment, making earning a consistent and stable wage nearly impossible.
When I was living out of my car, I did not know where we were going to eat, use the bathroom, rest or enjoy a quiet moment. I used McDonald's bathrooms to mix baby formula and wash my body because I had no other options.
Being unhoused in America must no longer be viewed as an individual shortcoming, but rather as an unacceptable, life-threatening policy failure.
I've lived out of my car for months with my two babies. I've seen my belongings in trash bags along my backseat.
Joe Biden cannot leave the lives of those on death row in the hands of future presidents. If he truly opposes the death penalty, he must do everything in his power to stop it for good.
I believe that nothing stops a bullet like opportunity.
There's some experiences you can't get in Congress. You don't learn what it's like to turn patients away because they're uninsured, or be passed over in the waiting room because you're on Medicaid.
My children almost died during my pregnancy because doctors wouldn't take my concerns seriously, dismissing me as just another black woman on Medicaid.
I have had patients die because of lack of insurance.
Politicians aren't leading us. Nurses are. Doctors are. Teachers are. Activists are.
We cannot equate white nationalist violence with what my colleagues on the right stated is 'left-wing extremist violence.' Equating a righteous movement for justice with hateful and racist white nationalism is outright ignorant and disingenuous on your part.
White supremacy is deeply entrenched in our nation's DNA.
White nationalist groups have infiltrated federal and local law enforcement agencies.
By expanding the legal authority of law enforcement agencies - without addressing the infiltration of white supremacy within law enforcement - we are expanding the capacity of white supremacy itself.
As a nurse, I've seen firsthand the harmful effects of patients not being able to afford their lifesaving medications.
Too many of our immigrant communities have been forced to live in fear, uncertain about their futures.
Decades of racist, dehumanizing immigration policies have created systems that have criminalized and traumatized our immigrant neighbors, friends, and families in St. Louis and across our country.
Our broken immigration system has left too many people uncertain of whether they could be torn away from their homes, forced to leave their families, their communities, and their dreams behind.
While I cannot speak on behalf of the AAPI community, I do want to say that I stand in solidarity with you.
The Violence Against Women Act is personal to me because I know the programs and services it funds are lifesaving.
I was evicted because of the violence a former partner committed against me and believe no person should lose housing due to crimes committed against them by abusers.
Eradicating violence of every kind in this country is a fight that requires a commitment from every single person.