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George II

(67,782 posts)
Mon Feb 22, 2021, 09:51 PM Feb 2021

Lauren Underwood Is the Future

The youngest Black woman in Congress has pulled off not one, but two, miraculous wins in a purple district. What’s her secret? Talking to people and making them feel heard, no matter how wide the divide.

Imagine what it must have felt like to be Rep. Lauren Underwood, the youngest Black woman in Congress, on the day when the halls of our nation’s Capitol building were stormed by an angry mob of white supremacist election deniers, some of whom sought to hang legislators by noose on makeshift gallows they had constructed outside.

Underwood had arrived at her office early that morning, after first stopping to receive her second dose of the coronavirus vaccine. She was watching the electoral certification process on TV (not all members attended in person due to the pandemic) when she saw some of her colleagues being rushed off the floor. As the images were playing out onscreen, she says she started hearing loud noises—“bangs or gunshots, almost like cannons”—in the hallway outside. It was only her second time in her new office; she didn’t yet know the escape routes. As she and her chief of staff barricaded the door with furniture, her phone started “making all these noises I’d never heard,” alerting her that nearby buildings had been evacuated due to bomb threats. There was no actionable information, Underwood tells me two days after the attack, just “Shelter in place,” “Stay put,” “Be quiet.”

She ventured into the adjoining empty office of a House colleague so that she could peek into the hallway to see what was going on. Her stomach must have sank when she realized the door had shut behind her, locking her out of her office and leaving her without her phone, computer, and iPad—all of which remained inside. She had only her member pin to identify her.

Underwood was eventually escorted to an undisclosed location, but what should have been a safe space was anything but when she realized the room was crammed full of Republicans who refused to put on masks. It was “the most direct superspreader exposure I had ever been in,” says Underwood, 34. “After all those months of being so careful with COVID...” (She has a heart condition called supraventricular tachycardia and is sure that if she got the virus, “I'd be symptomatic, and it would be rough.”)


MUCH more...a great article about an impressive young Member of Congress:

https://www.elle.com/culture/a35524502/lauren-underwood-is-the-future/?utm_medium=social-media&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflowTWELM
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Lauren Underwood Is the Future (Original Post) George II Feb 2021 OP
She's a good one!! We need more of her Thekaspervote Feb 2021 #1
K&R Blue Owl Feb 2021 #2
Illinois Democrats really need to help her in redistricting. tritsofme Feb 2021 #3
Yeah, it's not easy winning Cha Feb 2021 #4

tritsofme

(17,325 posts)
3. Illinois Democrats really need to help her in redistricting.
Tue Feb 23, 2021, 01:30 AM
Feb 2021

The way that district is today, she is highly vulnerable to getting swept out in a bad cycle. She has been a great story to watch over the last few years!

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