Julia Carson

Julia May Carson overcame poverty and racism to serve nearly two decades in state and local government—including 17 years in the Indiana state legislature—before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996. Carson, the first African American and first woman to represent Indianapolis in Congress, focused on issues that affected working class Americans, many of which she knew firsthand. “I’m the kind of individual that politicians talk negatively about,” she said upon her election to Congress. “I was born to a teenage mother out of wedlock when she had just turned 16. . . . And for someone like me to be able to walk life’s journey into the halls of the United States Congress as an elected member of that body is most overwhelming.” Read more >>