Black women take a stand in Congress

As February’s Black History Month was exiting to make way for March’s Women’s History Month last week, I sent up three cheers for the unbowed African-American women of the U.S. House of Representatives. They stood tall among the members of the oversight committee who heard testimony from President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and convicted felon Michael Cohen. In his opening diatribe against Mr. Trump, a chastened Cohen — who is on his way to prison — declared that the president directed an illegal 2016 campaign-finance scheme, even in the White House after the election, and he called Mr. Trump a racist, con man and crook. The Trumpian Republican sycophants on the committee pounced with obligatory attacks on Cohen but no real defense of Mr. Trump ... save one. But Reps. Brenda Lawrence and Ayanna Pressley — in-the-know black women — were having none of it, and they gave Mr. Meadows what-for. For all of America to see, these mainstream Democratic legislators unapologetically slipped the appropriate shoe on the bigoted Mr. Meadows’ foot, and it fit perfectly. When the 91st Congress convened 50 years ago, Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn became the first black female member. In 1972, she was the first African-American woman to run for president and the first woman of any race for the Democratic nomination. Twenty-two black women have been elected to this 116th Congress. On the evidence of Reps. Lawrence, Pressley and Plaskett, they will not be mere symbols of change but also agents of it.