Carol Moseley Braun

Carol Moseley Braun served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 1993 to 1999. She was the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate (and the only one until Kamala Harris was elected to the Senate from California in 2016), and was the first female senator from Illinois.

Moseley Braun was born on August 16, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in political science in 1969 and obtained her juris doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972.

Moseley Braun worked as a prosecutor in the office of the U.S. Attorney in Chicago from 1973 to 1977. From 1979 to 1989, she served in the the Illinois state House of Representatives. After running unsuccessfully for Illinois lieutenant governor in 1986, she was elected the Cook County, Illinois, recorder of deeds in 1988, the first African American to hold an executive position in Cook County.

After losing re-election to the U.S. Senate in 1998, Moseley Braun served as the U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand from 1999 to 2001. She ran unsuccessfully for U.S. president in the 2004 election. Braun also ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Chicago in 2011.

In 2005, Moseley Braun founded an organic products company, Good Food Organics. In 2016, she became a visiting professor of political science at Northwestern University.

For information on Braun's policy subject areas, committee appointments and sponsored/co-sponsored legislation during her time in the U.S. Senate, please visit her profile on https://www.congress.gov.

Sources:

CNN (2019, Aug. 3). Carol Moseley Braun Fast Facts. Retrieved on Feb. 18, 2020, from https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/26/us/carol-moseley-braun-fast-facts/index.html.

United States House of Representatives. Moseley Braun, Carol. Retrieved on Feb. 18, 2020, from https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/M/MOSELEY-BRAUN,-Carol-(M001025)/ .

United States Senate. Carol Moseley Braun: A Featured Biography. Retrieved on Feb. 18, 2020 from https://www.senate.gov/senators/FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_Moseley_Braun.htm.