Cynthia Ann McKinney is the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States. She served as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993–2003 and 2005–2007. She is the first Black woman to have represented Georgia in the House.
She was born in Atlanta, the daughter of Billy McKinney, one of Atlanta's first Black policemen, and a former Georgia State Representative. McKinney once described how as a young girl she was exposed to the Civil Rights Movement through her father, an activist who regularly participated in demonstrations across the south. As a police officer, McKinney's father would challenge the racially discriminatory policies of the Atlanta Police Department that were in effect at the time by publicly protesting in front of the station, often carrying young McKinney on his shoulders. After years of protesting social injustice in this way, McKinney's father decided it would be a more effective strategy to actually make public policy than to protest it. Ms. McKinney says that it was this early experience that opened her eyes to the power of government and its potential to guarantee social justice through legislation.
Her political career began in 1986 when her father, a representative in the Georgia House of Representatives, submitted her name as a write-in candidate for the Georgia state house. She got about 40% of the popular vote, despite the fact that she lived in Jamaica at the time with then-husband Coy Grandison. In 1988, McKinney ran for the same seat and won, making the McKinneys the first father and daughter to simultaneously serve in the Georgia state house.
In the 1992 election, McKinney was elected in the newly re-created 11th District, and was re-elected in 1994. When her district was redrawn and renumbered McKinney was easily elected from the new 4th District in the 1996 election, and was re-elected twice without much opposition.
McKinney was defeated Denise Majette in the 2002 Democratic primary, in part due to crossover voting in Georgia's open primary election, which permits anyone from any party to vote in any party primary. McKinney protested the result in court, claiming that thousands of Republicans, knowing they had no realistic chance of defeating her in the November general election, had voted in the Democratic primary against McKinney in revenge for her anti-Bush views and her allegations of voter fraud in Florida in the 2000 Presidential Election. Another reason for her defeat may have been due to her "controversial profile, which included a suggestion that the U.S. had advance knowledge of the attacks and that President Bush may have been aware of the attack but failed to warn New Yorkers, allegedly due to his father's business interests: "It is known that President Bush's father, through the Carlyle Group, had–at the time of the attacks–joint business interests with the bin Laden construction company and many defense industry holdings, the stocks of which have soared since September 11." Other factors in her defeat were her opposition of aid to Israel and a perceived support of Palestinian and Arab causes and alleged anti-Semitism by her supporters. On the night before the primary election, McKinney's father stated on Atlanta television that "Jews have bought everybody ... J-E-W-S" in the election, referring to Dekalb County's large Jewish community. During the 2000 presidential campaign, McKinney wrote that "Al Gore's Negro tolerance level has never been too high. I've never known him to have more than one black person around him at any given time." The Gore campaign was outraged and responded by pointing out that Gore's campaign manager, Donna Brazile, was Black.
McKinney was re-elected to the House in November 2004. In Congress, she advocated unsealing records pertaining to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and continued to criticize the Bush Administration over the 9/11 attacks. She supported anti-war legislation and introduced articles of impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
She was defeated by Hank Johnson in the 2006 Democratic primary, after finding herself in the national spotlight again over the March 29, 2006 Capitol Hill Police Incident. She left the Democratic Party in September 2007.
Members of the U.S. Green Party had attempted to recruit McKinney for their ticket in both 2000 and 2004. In 2004, attempts were made to convince McKinney to run on the Green Party ballot line for president and on December 11, 2007, McKinney announced her candidacy for the Green Party nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 presidential election.
No comments:
Post a Comment