WASHINGTON — Twenty-two-year-old Dequavius Pitts was excited to be at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C.
The recent Georgia Southern University graduate is interning in the city, and curious to see how panelists discussed issues such as LGBTQ rights.
Pitts can talk about his concerns with more seasoned Black members of Congress until he loses his voice, but that rarely results in change, he said.
He wants to see a bolder push to protect the rights of transgender Americans and Black queer men, because “we’re always being torn down.”
Dequavius Pitts, 22, is a recent graduate of Georgia Southern University. (Brandon Tensley/Capital B)
“I don’t really see anything about it,” Pitts told Capital B, referring to action around LGBTQ rights.
The increasing age of Black members of Congress was on the minds of attendees at the conference, a multiday event that started on Sept. 24. Many said that they felt that fresh blood is needed, but it’s unclear how that would happen without veteran lawmakers stepping aside.
Younger voters are thought to be the keys to future electoral success, and some members of the Democratic Party have argued that attracting them will require electing younger members. They feel that seasoned lawmakers are out of touch, and don’t have what it takes to lead some of the most pressing civil rights battles of today.
This tension came to a head this month. Robert White, a third-term member of the D.C. Council, announced that he would challenge his former boss, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s longtime nonvoting representative, for her seat in the Democratic primary next year. Norton’s campaign team didn’t respond to Capital B’s request for comment.
Norton has served since 1991, and at 88 years old, she’s the oldest member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I’ve never seen my city more vulnerable than we are right now,” White, 43, said in a social media post announcing his intention to challenge Holmes. “In this entire Congress, there is one person whose job it is to protect and stand up for our residents, and we need our strongest fighters. … That spark that I see across this city — we need to light it into a fire.”
Similarly, the Democratic strategist Donna Brazile wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece earlier this month that though Norton “has been like a second mother” to her, “Washingtonians need a delegate in Congress who is able to vigorously stand up for our right to govern ourselves — just as the residents of every other American city do.”
These concerns continue a refrain that gained new momentum among many Americans when former President Joe Biden bowed out of his reelection bid last year. Conference attendees of a variety of ages echoed similar sentiments about Black lawmakers.
Lauren Ishmael, 67, said that veteran lawmakers are “very smart, very well-informed, and very well-connected.” But she also believes that they need to make room for the perspectives and contributions of younger generations.
“We need some younger voices, younger faces, younger experiences,” Ishmael, a first-time attendee, told Capital B, clad in a crimson and cream Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. jacket. “We need young blood.”
Jumping in, Ishmael’s friend and sorority sister Sandra Caldwell, 77, elaborated a bit further and said that younger people “just think differently.”
“My granddaughter tells me that I’m a seasoned saint and can do and say what I want,” Caldwell, who hadn’t been to the conference in years, said with a laugh. “But their [younger generations’] thought process is different from ours. And I think that’s great. … Their take on things is different, and I’m hoping that it’s going to help change the world, because we need a change.”
Her comments aligned with Pitts’ desire for younger Black lawmakers who might take up the mantle of leadership on the issues he sees as the most critical of this political moment.
Nurturing a new generation of leadership
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, 77, told Capital B that he’s “all in” when it comes to supporting new Black political talent.
“I’m cutting endorsement tapes for folks who are running for Congress next year,” said Thompson, a Democrat who has represented Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District since 1993. “I’m eating with people who are running in Texas in the newly redrawn district. I’m scheduled to speak in Detroit for somebody who’s running for mayor.”
Thompson also underscored his attempts to reach younger Black voters — he said that he’s engaging with students on the campuses of historically Black colleges and universities.
“SWAC [Southwestern Athletic Conference] football, SWAC baseball, SWAC basketball — all that is the holy grail in my neck of the woods,” he said. “I represent Alcorn [State], Jackson State, and Mississippi Valley State, and I’m a graduate of Tougaloo College. … I’m a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. I’m a Mason. All those organizations involve young people.”
Thompson’s office added that he “always supports people in our state and district.”
It’s the attention to younger generations that U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, a Democrat from Alabama, says has benefitted his career.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures of Alabama said he spends a lot of time on college campuses because he wants to be inclusive of the kinds of issues he focuses on in Congress. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc via Getty Images)
He spends a lot of time on college campuses — he recently went to Howard University — because he said that he wants to be inclusive of the kinds of issues he focuses on in Congress.
Figures, 40, represents Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District, which was redrawn to be majority Black after a major 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
“You have to understand how much you can learn from the members [of Congress] who have been here for some time,” he told Capital B after his panel at the conference, adding that he prioritized establishing those relationships when he entered office in January of this year.
Figures said that he has learned from veteran lawmakers.
“It’s nothing but an asset to be able to be able to rely on seasoned members of Congress, especially Black members of Congress, who have seen the shift in how Black Americans have been perceived in elected office and in the general public over the years,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, a Democrat from Alabama, speaks on a panel at Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 54th Annual Legislative Conference. (Brandon Tensley/Capital B)
Figures also wants to make sure that as many Americans as possible, but especially young Black Americans, see themselves reflected in his leadership.
“Whether we’re talking about workforce development or whether we’re talking about how this [‘Big Beautiful Bill’] cuts education access in terms of putting limits on how much you can borrow [in loans] to go to school, those things resonate,” he said.
This is the exact kind of connection that Wonser Mongrue, 19, enjoys from the new blood in Congress, she said.
Wonser Mongrue, 19, is a sophomore at Howard University (Brandon Tensley/Capital B)
The Howard University sophomore is a member of her school’s Coalition for Good Trouble, an organization named after the work of the late John Lewis, a civil rights leader from Alabama who at 23 was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Lewis, a Democrat, was later a U.S. representative from Georgia for more than 30 years.
The university group that Mongrue is involved with focuses on fueling change through voting and legislation, and members of the group were at the conference to learn more about the city’s political environment.
Mongrue was still buzzing from the visit U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat from Maryland, made to her school in mid-September. At 54, Alsobrooks, a freshman senator, is still younger than many Black members who have been in power for decades.
“She told us, ‘You guys, please don’t be intimidated by what you guys are seeing because at the end of discomfort is comfort,” Mongrue told Capital B at the Annual Legislative Conference. “If that means [inserting] myself into spaces where a lot of people don’t look like me, a lot of people don’t think like me, then I will.”
Mongrue said that she enjoyed Alsobrooks’ candor and boldness. Alsobrooks discussed her anxiety around running to be the state’s attorney of Prince George’s County in 2010, anxiety that stemmed from the fact that she was a single mother raising a young daughter. Still, Alsobrooks was determined to toss her hat into the ring and bring a different perspective to the office, she said.
“There definitely needs to be new voices” because “a lot of times, older folks don’t want to hear what younger people have to say,” said Mongrue, who added that the country will never really advance if we’re only “surrounding ourselves with people who think like us.”
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