Born: 13 April 1939, United States
Died: 4 November 2021
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Barbara-Rose Richardson
The following is republished from the U.S. Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
A longtime community activist, Barbara-Rose Collins was elected to Congress in 1990 on a platform to bring federal dollars and aid to her underserved neighborhood in downtown Detroit. In the House, Collins, a single mother, focused on her lifelong effort to ensure that Black families and Black communities had the resources and opportunities they needed to thrive. “I look forward to the collapse of racism in America and the rise of real freedom and equality for all of Black America,” Collins told her colleagues on the House Floor. “The death of racism will allow young African-Americans to overcome obstacles and enjoy expanded opportunities.”
The eldest of four children of Lamar Nathaniel and Lou Versa Jones Richardson, Barbara-Rose Collins was born Barbara Rose Richardson in Detroit, Michigan, on April 13, 1939. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father worked as an auto manufacturer and later as an independent contractor in home improvement. Collins graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1957 and attended Detroit’s Wayne State University, where she studied political science and anthropology. Collins left college to marry her classmate, Virgil Gary Collins, who later worked as a pharmaceutical salesman. They had three children, one of whom died in infancy. The couple divorced in 1960, and, as a single mother, Collins had to work multiple jobs. She received public financial assistance until she was hired as a business manager in the physics department at Wayne State, a position she held for nine years. Collins subsequently became an assistant in the office of equal opportunity and neighborhood relations at Wayne State.
In the late 1960s, Collins heard a speech by Black activist Stokely Carmichael at Detroit’s Shrine of the Black Madonna of the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church. Inspired by Carmichael’s Black Power philosophy and community activism, Collins purchased a house within a block of her childhood home and joined the Shrine Church, whose agenda focused on uplifting Black neighborhoods. In 1971, Collins was elected to Detroit’s region one school board, earning widespread recognition for her work on school safety and academic achievement. Encouraged by the Shrine Church pastor, Collins campaigned for a seat in the state legislature in 1974, hyphenating her name, Barbara-Rose, to distinguish herself from the other candidates. Victorious, she embarked on a six-year career in the state house. Collins chaired the constitutional revision and women’s rights committee, which produced Women in the Legislative Process, the first published report to document the status of women in the Michigan state legislature.
Bolstered by her work in Detroit’s most underserved neighborhoods, Collins considered running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980 against embattled downtown Representative Charles C. Diggs Jr. Collins’s mentor, Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young, advised her to run for Detroit city council the following year instead, and she did successfully. Seven years later in the Democratic primary, she challenged incumbent U.S. Representative George W. Crockett Jr., who had succeeded Diggs. In a hard-fought campaign, Collins held Crockett to a narrow victory with less than 49 percent of the vote. Crockett chose not to run for re-election in 1990, and Collins declared her candidacy for the open seat. Collins’s 1990 campaign focused on improving public safety and bringing federal money to Detroit, an underprivileged and segregated city with one of the highest crime rates in the nation. In 1989, Collins’s son was convicted of armed robbery, and she concluded that his legal trouble stemmed from the absence of a strong male role model in his life. “I could teach a girl how to be a woman, but I could not teach a boy how to be a man,” she later told the Detroit Free Press. Drawing from this experience, Collins promised to pursue legislation to support Black families, rallying under the banner “Save the Black Male.” In a crowded field of eight candidates, Collins won the primary with 34 percent of the vote. Her victory was tantamount to election to Congress in the overwhelmingly Democratic district with a large Black majority. Collins sailed through the general election with 80 percent of the vote and was re-elected twice with even higher percentages.
One of three Black women in her class of first-term lawmakers, Collins sought the influence and counsel of longtime Michigan Representative John David Dingell Jr., who helped her gain a seat on the Public Works and Transportation Committee (later Transportation and Infrastructure). She also received assignments to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families. She later traded these two seats for a spot on the Government Operations Committee (renamed Government Reform and Oversight) and the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, where she chaired the Subcommittee on Postal Operations and Services in the 103rd Congress (1993–1995). A member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the Congressional Women’s Caucus, Representative Collins was appointed a majority Whip at-large from 1993 until 1994.
In the House, Collins focused on directing federal resources and programs to improve opportunities in underserved Black communities. In October 1992, Collins began encouraging farmers to donate excess food that would otherwise go to waste to urban food banks and shelters. Collins generally supported President William J. Clinton’s economic and job stimulus initiatives, but she opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that importing cheaper foreign products would threaten unionized manufacturing jobs in her district. During debate on an omnibus crime bill, Collins drew on her experience in Detroit to introduce the Community Safety and Empowerment Act of 1993 as an alternative bill. Her proposal would have created a federal council to provide grants for local projects to combat crime and promote health and education in disadvantaged communities. “Our urban communities must help themselves,” Collins implored. “No government official or agency knows more about the problems confronting a community more than the people who live and work in that community.” Though she voted to advance the omnibus crime bill to debate, she voted against the final version of the bill in 1994. “I cannot in good conscience vote for over 60 new death penalty provisions and throw people into a system that is riddled with discrimination,” she said, referring to the bill’s extension of the death penalty to several more federal crimes and a section that mandated life in prison for people convicted of three felonies. Collins argued that these provisions would disproportionately affect minority communities, declaring, “I think justice is dispensed differently for people of color, be they black or Hispanic.”
In 1994, Collins organized the Congressional Caucus on Children and Families to promote efforts supporting the millions of American families living in poverty. “The future of African American children is particularly tenuous,” Collins wrote in June 1994. “My message to children throughout this country is very simple: You are valued, you are loved, and you must survive for the good of all humanity,” she continued. Voicing support for the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993—which required employers to guarantee workers time off to care for loved ones—Collins declared, “If we pass this bill we have taken a step toward healing the ailing family in America.” Collins also called on federal officials to include housework, childcare, volunteer work, and time devoted to a family business as components of the gross national product. “If you raise the status of women,” she declared, “we would be more conscious of the family unit.” To champion the contributions Black men and women made to the country, Collins introduced two resolutions in 1994 designating two days that spring as “African-American Women Positive Role Model Day” and “African-American Men Positive Role Model Day.” Collins’s family advocacy also extended to her support for the Million Man March in Washington, DC, in October 1995, which drew attention to the social, economic, and political challenges faced by Black communities. Collins praised the march’s emphasis on family and community and provided water for those in attendance.
With her focus on domestic issues, Representative Collins generally opposed increasing foreign aid. “Our cities are hurting,” she observed. “We must learn how to take care of America first.” But Collins was not averse to challenging what she saw as racial discrimination in foreign policy. In the wake of a military coup on the island nation of Haiti, Collins stood alongside five other CBC members to stage a sit-in at the White House in April 1994 to protest the government’s refusal to take in Haitian refugees. The protestors demanded a stronger embargo against Haiti and called on the Clinton administration to admit Haitian refugees. “What’s being done to Haitians is inhumane and immoral,” Collins said. “The fact of the matter is we welcome Hungarians with open arms, we welcome Vietnamese with open arms, we welcome Cubans with open arms, but when it comes to black Haitians, we tell them, ‘Stand back we don’t want you,’ the result being that hundreds are drowned at sea, children and women eaten by sharks.” All six Members were arrested, fined, and released.
Collins was popular back home despite holding the third-worst attendance record for votes in the House in 1995, but when the U.S. Justice Department and the House Ethics Committee investigated her office for the alleged misuse of campaign and scholarship funds in 1996, she drew six challengers in the Democratic primary. Ultimately, Carolyn C. Kilpatrick defeated Collins for the Democratic nomination by a 20-point margin and went on to win the general election. In January 1997, the Ethics Committee determined that Collins had violated 11 House rules and federal laws but did not recommend disciplinary action because Collins had already left office.
After Congress, Collins remained active in local politics. In 2001, she won a seat on the Detroit city council. Collins was re-elected to the council for a second term in 2005 and retired in 2009. She died in Detroit on November 4, 2021, of complications from COVID-19.