How to Win Elections in a System 'Not Set Up for Us'
ATLANTA—It was midway through a sticky Georgia Saturday, and Jessica Byrd was dispelling myths about the way black women are supposed to run for office in 2018.
About 120 candidates, operatives, and candidates of the future—both men and women—sat on green plastic chairs inside a building that normally houses an environmental nonprofit in east Atlanta. This was the second annual Black Campaign School, and these were its students—all aspirants in a fledgling project to increase black representation in a country where 90 percent of all elected public officials are white.
The three-day training program was backed by the major Democratic campaign committees and allied groups like Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List. But it was also, in some ways, a challenge to them. The school offered a forum where up-and-coming black politicians could share their common struggles of trying to advance in a political system that, as one candidate put it, “was not designed with us in mind.”
“What this space does,” Byrd told me during a break in the sessions, “is it allows us to get very real and very transparent around the decision points they’re going to face as they’re out on the campaign trail. And those decision points aren’t just about the math or the strategy. It’s also about all of the historical and cultural things that have kept black people from political power.”
A few hours earlier, Byrd was handling a question on a hot topic among several of the woman attendees: hair. An effervescent 31-year-old, Byrd brought to bear a decade-plus of campaign experience across 43 states.
“I remember hearing,” began a woman seated near the window, “this was years ago—you can’t change your hair while you’re running. ‘Don’t go back and forth between having straight hair and natural hair.’”
“I just really want to have a conversation about that,” she continued. “Because black women change their hair all the time. Why do I have to look any differently because I’m running?”
Byrd often paused before
