Black History
Women’s History Month: Meet the Black Women Legislators Shaping California Policy
Since Yvonne Braithwaite Burke became the first Black woman elected to serve in the California State Assembly in 1966, 20 other African American women have represented their constituents in both houses of the California State Legislature with distinction. Many of them have gone on to make their marks in various political arenas at the state, local and national levels.

By Mark Hedin
California Black Media
Since Yvonne Braithwaite Burke became the first Black woman elected to serve in the California State Assembly in 1966, 20 other African American women have represented their constituents in both houses of the California State Legislature with distinction.
Many of them have gone on to make their marks in various political arenas at the state, local and national levels.
Take U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA-12), who represented Oakland and adjacent communities in the State Assembly and Senate for eight years before winning the first of 13 terms she has now served in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Or Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, also a California Assembly alumna, who became Speaker of the body in 2008 and served six terms in the U.S. Congress.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA-29) represented South L.A. in the state Assembly and is serving her 17th term in the U.S. Congress.
In 2023, five of the 12 members of the California Black Legislative Caucus (CBLC) are women. They are:
Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D – Ladera Heights)
The only Black woman in the California State Senate, Lola Smallwood-Cuevas represents state Senate District 28, a small, densely populated section of Los Angeles County that includes Culver City and parts of mid-city Los Angeles and unincorporated Los Angeles County.
A former journalist and labor advocate, she worked in the successful Justice for Janitors campaign of the 1990s, and, during 15 years working at UCLA, she founded the Center for Advancement of Racial Equity at Work and co-founded the Los Angeles Black Worker Center, which became a model for similar organizations across the country, recognized by President Barack Obama.
In her first months as a state senator, Smallwood-Cuevas has introduced a package of worker and civil rights measures.
Among them is SB 627, legislation that would help workers laid off by a chain business to find work at other locations nearby. Another, SB 497, would offer workers whistleblower protection in cases of alleged wage theft or unequal pay.
Lori Wilson (D – Suisun City)
When she was elected mayor of Suisun City in 2018, Lori Wilson became the first-ever Black woman to serve as mayor anywhere in Solano County. She’d been vice mayor for six years.
Now, she’s chair of the CBLC after her election in April last year to represent the 11th Assembly district, which straddles Solano and Contra Costa counties.
She used her background in finance and accounting to work with homebuilders, fair housing agencies and as Solano County’s auditor.
She serves on the Appropriations, Banking and Finance, and the Accountability and Administrative Review standing committees.
Akilah Weber (D – San Diego)
From the 79th Assembly district is Akilah Weber, representing parts of San Diego, her hometown, and El Cajon, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley/La Presa and La Mesa.
After becoming first Black person ever elected to the La Mesa City Council in 2018, Weber left in early 2021 to run for the Assembly seat in a special election to replace her mother, Dr. Shirley Weber, who’d been named secretary of state. She won, and her mother swore her in. Akilah Weber was re-elected in 2022.
Weber is a doctor who founded San Diego’s Rady Children’s Hospital Pediatric & Adolescent Gynecology Division, heads the adolescent gynecology program at UC San Diego Health, and is an assistant clinical professor at UCSD.
In the state Assembly, she serves on six standing committees: Health, Higher Education Appropriations, Communications and Conveyance, and Water, Parks and Wildlife, Legislative Ethics Committee (co-chair) and Social Determinants of Health select committee (chair).
Tina McKinnor (D – Inglewood)
Tina McKinnor’s 61st Assembly district spans communities in western Los Angeles County including Inglewood, Gardena, Hawthorne, Marina del Rey, Venice, Westchester, Westmont, West Athens and parts of Los Angeles.
She was elected to the state Assembly in July last year in a special election after the sudden resignation of Autumn Burke, herself a former CBLC vice-chair and the daughter of California Assembly alum and three-term U.S. Congresswoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke. Burke cited COVID impacts on her family at the time for her resignation.
McKinnor, who had worked in the Assembly for years as Burke’s chief of staff, is now chair of the Assembly’s Public Employment and Retirement Committee, chair of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games Select Committee, and a member of the Business and Professions and the Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials committees.
Mia Bonta (D – Oakland)
Mia Bonta ran for and won the 18th Assembly district seat in Alameda County in a 2021 special election called after her husband, Rob Bonta, who’d held the seat since 2012, was named California Attorney General.
Bonta describes herself as a “proud Black Latina, raised by activists who protested outside the halls of power so that people like her could one day have a seat at the table inside.”
She earned her law degree at Yale, after studying there as an undergraduate. She earned her Ed.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Prior to being elected to the state Assembly, Bonta’s work revolved around improving educational outcomes for low-income students as CEO of Oakland Promise, a district-wide Oakland college and career prep program, and board president of the Alameda Unified School District.
She serves on six Assembly committees: Joint Legislative Budget, Public Safety, Human Services, Communications and Conveyance, Business and Professions and the Budget Committee, including two of its subcommittees: No. 5, Public Safety; and No. 6, Budget Process, Oversight and Program Evaluation.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of May 24 – 30, 2023
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 24 – 30, 2023

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Activism
The Case Against SB357: Black, Vulnerable and Trafficked
on April 25, the committee approved Senate Bill 14 which would make human trafficking of minors a felony and strikable offense forcing exploiters to serve 80% of their sentence.

PART 8 – Come Back to Humanity
Although California Senate Bill 357 was intended to alleviate arrests of willing sex workers under anti-loitering laws, The Black, Vulnerable and Exploited series has established that passing SB 357 and other similar legislation harms Black communities, one of the most vulnerable and traumatized groups in America.
Over the past several weeks, overwhelming evidence against SB 357 has been presented showing why sex trafficking disproportionately impacts the Black community and how decriminalizing sex buying and exploitation will further harm vulnerable Black communities.
By Tanya Dennis and Vanessa Russell
One year and one day after Blair Williams had killed herself by walking into traffic on a busy freeway, her sister, Brianna Williams, testified before the California Senate Public Safety Committee on the horrors of sex-trafficking.
Soon after, on April 25, the committee approved Senate Bill 14 which would make human trafficking of minors a felony and strikable offense forcing exploiters to serve 80% of their sentence.
Passed with bi-partisan support in the committee, the bill means a lot to people who have been trafficked as it shows that the punishment for trafficking will be equal to the crime.
Currently, exploiters who receive 10 years for trafficking a minor may be able to get out in as little as two years. This practice of letting someone out after selling a child has created apathy among survivors who wonder if anyone understands the pain and torture they endure. The unanimous acceptance of this bill in committee is helping survivors to feel protected and valuable.
Led by Senator Aisha Wahab, the committee, which included senators Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, Steven Bradford, Senator Scott D. Wiener and Oakland’s Nancy Skinner, unanimously passed the bill written by Senator Shannon Grove.
At the hearing, Brianna Williams, a Black 28-year-old woman who was sex-trafficked in Oakland at the age of 13, shared the story of her sister Blair, who was terrorized, raped, and tortured by her exploiter.
Suffering a mental break, Blair walked onto a freeway where she was instantly killed on April 24, 2022.
Williams described Blair as a beautiful young lady, who was an avid reader and creative who loved to play with her niece and nephews and aspired to be an attorney. Blair died at the age of 23. Many senators teared up as they contemplated the torture Blair endured.
At the age of 17, Williams was able to exit with the help of nonprofits and churches who invested in her life, providing workforce development, education, mentoring, and legal help.
To address the harm that is being done to vulnerable people such as Black girls, anti-trafficking organizations are asking leaders and legislators and even proponents of full decriminalization for sex work to ‘come back to humanity’ and reconsider an ‘equity model’ that decriminalizes the exploited but maintains accountability for the buyers and exploiters.
The equity model would also provide funded exit services including mental health, housing, workforce development, and legal services for the exploited. These services would provide an opportunity for the trafficked to start again, an opportunity that 76% of women, men and transgendered people are asking for.
However, making buyers and exploiters accountable does not mean applying blanket life sentences.
Human trafficking cannot be ‘criminalized’ away, supporters of the new bill say, and instead they call for thoughtfulness and empathy regarding the intentions of those involved and ask tough questions.
Many exploiters have been abused and groomed into becoming exploiters in the same way the exploited are.
There are early intervention diversion programs that can help first-time sex buyers and exploiters take ownership for the harm they have caused, process the root of their behavior, and begin to heal and change.
Giving buyers and exploiters a platform to be accountable and make amends improves their lives, the lives of the families they are also harming, and hopefully bring some healing to the harmed.
Nola Brantley, a survivor, co-founder of Motivating, Inspiring Supporting and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth (MISSSEY), and CEO of Nola Brantley Speaks says, “As service providers, we must unite and support one another because this is very important and hard. We can’t do it alone. We need each other and the community needs us to be in solidarity!”
For more information, go to ResearchGate and Layout 1 (depaul.edu)
To get involved, join Violence Prevention Coalition for a City Wide Peace Summit on June 24th from 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. at Laney College in Oakland. To register, go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/city-wide-peace-summit-tickets-622795647547
Tanya Dennis serves on the Board of Oakland Frontline Healers (OFH) and series co-author Vanessa Russell of “Love Never Fails Us” and member of OFH.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of May 17 – 23, 2023
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 17 – 23 2023

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