Julia Carson - Infinite Women

Born: 8 July 1938, United States
Died: 15 December 2007
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Julia May Porter

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).

Julia May Carson overcame poverty and racism to serve nearly two decades in state and local government—including 17 years in the Indiana state legislature—before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996. Carson, the first African American and first woman to represent Indianapolis in Congress, focused on issues that affected working class Americans, many of which she knew firsthand. “I’m the kind of individual that politicians talk negatively about,” she said upon her election to Congress. “I was born to a teenage mother out of wedlock when she had just turned 16. . . . And for someone like me to be able to walk life’s journey into the halls of the United States Congress as an elected member of that body is most overwhelming.”

Julia Carson was born Julia May Porter in Louisville, Kentucky, on July 8, 1938. Her single mother, Velma Porter, moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, to find work as a housekeeper. At one point during her childhood, Carson’s mother got sick and was unable to work. Carson went to a local government office to ask about food assistance, and later remembered being humiliated by the staff. “They looked at me something awful,” Carson recalled. “I had tears in my eyes. I said ‘I need some food for my mom. She’s very ill and can’t work.’ They gave me lard and cornmeal.” The staff told her to never return. Carson attended the local public schools, and worked part-time waiting tables, delivering newspapers, and harvesting crops, among other jobs. In 1955, she graduated from Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis. A short while later she married and had two children: Sam and Tanya. She divorced while her children were still young. Carson studied at Martin University in Indianapolis and Indiana University in Bloomington. In 1965, she was working as a secretary at a local chapter of United Auto Workers when she met newly elected U.S. Representative Andrew Jacobs Jr., who hired her as a caseworker and district aide. Carson worked for Jacobs for seven years until 1972, when he encouraged her to run for office in the Indiana legislature. He recalled sitting in Carson’s living room for an hour, trying to convince her to run. “I liked working for a candidate rather than being a candidate myself,” Carson later reflected. But Jacobs’s words changed her mind. “Come on, kid,” he encouraged. “This is the time to step up.”

Carson won election and served in the state house of representatives from 1973 to 1977, holding the post of assistant minority caucus chair, before winning election to the Indiana state senate. There, she worked alongside Katie Hall, who would become the first Black woman to represent Indiana in Congress. Carson was a state senator until 1990, sitting on the finance committee and eventually holding the minority whip position. In the state legislature, Carson earned a reputation for defending low-income residents that lasted throughout her career. One of her bills would have pinned the responsibility for distributing aid to homeless residents onto county—not municipal—governments. “If you spread out the tax base so that poor relief funding would come from the county rather than from the township, then it makes it more equitable,” she reasoned. She also authored a bill that would have authorized state-funded compensation for victims of violent crime. While in the legislature, Carson worked as the human resources director at an engine manufacturing company—a job she held until 1985, when she opened her own retail clothing store. In 1990, Carson won election as a Center Township trustee. As trustee, she administered government aid payments in central Indianapolis. Carson successfully erased the agency’s $20 million deficit, leaving a $6 million surplus prior to winning a seat in Congress. “Julia Carson,” observed the county’s Republican auditor, “wrestled that monster to the ground.”

When Jacobs retired from the House in 1996 after 15 terms representing a district encompassing greater Indianapolis, Carson entered the race to fill his seat. The district, which in 1996 was described as “marginally Democratic,” was 68 percent White and 30 percent Black. With Jacobs’s endorsement, Carson defeated the former district party chair, Ann DeLaney, in the Democratic primary with 49 percent of the vote. In the general Carson faced Republican Virginia Blankenbaker. Both candidates supported abortion rights and opposed the death penalty. When Blankenbaker mailed campaign advertisements with Carson’s picture on them, Carson and others criticized the decision as an attempt to make her race a campaign issue. “I am not your African American candidate,” Carson said. “I am the Democratic candidate for Congress. I don’t allow my opponents to stereotype me and confine me to a certain segment of the population.” On Election Day, Carson won with 53 percent of the vote to Blankenbaker’s 45 percent.

Carson underwent heart surgery shortly after her election and was sworn into office from her hospital bed on January 9, 1997. She was unable to travel to Washington, DC, until early March. Her health problems led to speculation she would not seek re-election in 1998, but Carson quickly quieted the rumors. Carson won re-election four times by slightly larger margins in her competitive district. Reapportionment in 2001 added more than 100,000 new constituents—many of them Republican. Nevertheless, Carson was re-elected in 2004 and 2006, both times with 54 percent of the vote.

When Carson claimed her seat in the 105th Congress (1997–1999), she served on the Banking and Financial Services Committee and the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. In the 108th Congress (2003–2005), she left Veterans’ Affairs to accept an assignment on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Carson’s legislative interests in the House ranged from national issues affecting children and working-class Americans to local programs of interest to her Indianapolis constituency. From her seat on Financial Services, Carson authored legislation to reform the debt consolidation industry. Boosting America’s “financial literacy” was one of her chief goals. To that end, she helped create the Indiana Mortgage and Foreclosure Hotline to counsel homeowners and potential buyers about the mortgage process. Carson noted that Indiana residents had one of the country’s highest rates of homeownership in 2001, only to see a record number of foreclosures in 2004. “Homeownership,” Carson declared, “is the cornerstone of a healthy thriving city.” Carson was a regular sponsor of children’s safety, health, and nutrition legislation. In 1999, she submitted comprehensive gun safety legislation, including a provision requiring safety locks on handguns. “Kids and guns are a deadly combination,” she noted. “It makes no sense that it is easier for kids to operate a handgun than it is for kids to open an aspirin lid.” Having grown up in a single parent household, Carson introduced several pieces of legislation calling attention to the importance of fatherhood in children’s lives, including a bill that sought to establish a nationwide media campaign promoting responsible fatherhood. “My experience growing up fatherless is what has stirred my passion to become a leader in this movement,” she said on the House Floor.

Carson’s work on Transportation and Infrastructure also allowed her to support local infrastructure development in her home city. She inserted over $45 million worth of earmarks in the 2005 surface transportation bill for various projects around Indianapolis, including the construction of the city’s downtown transit center, which would bear her name when it opened in 2016. In 2002 and 2003, she sponsored a large-scale Amtrak reauthorization bill—the National Defense Rail Act. The $40 billion bill would have provided for the development of new high-speed rail corridors and enhanced security measures in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11. Amtrak was a major employer in Indiana and housed its largest repair facility near Indianapolis.

In 2000, Carson was one of the last House Members to support the extension of permanent normal trade relations with China. The William J. Clinton administration had intensely lobbied Carson to support the bill, but she hesitated because of China’s questionable human rights record and because organized labor in the United States opposed the measure. “I feel like I have been put in a Maytag washer and put on the spin cycle,” she noted before the vote. She reluctantly voted in favor of the legislation, believing that increased foreign trade would benefit Indianapolis businesses. Carson later opposed the George W. Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, which she claimed would draw too much attention and resources away from America’s domestic issues. “A preemptive war is a war nonetheless,” she declared.

One of Carson’s crowning legislative achievements was the bill she authored and introduced during the 106th Congress (1999–2001) to award the Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights activist Rosa Parks. It was while reading Parks’s autobiography, Quiet Strength, in early 1998, that Carson decided that Parks—whose refusal to move to the back of a segregated bus in 1955 galvanized the modern civil rights movement—should be awarded the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress. “I had a lingering kind of adoration in my own soul for Rosa,” Carson noted. “I always believed in my heart that it was Rosa who paved the way for me to go to Congress and to other places. I felt like it then became my purpose to give her some honor, to repay her.” Carson introduced a resolution to honor Parks with the medal on February 4, 1999—Parks’s 86th birthday. Initially, the bill attracted 88 cosponsors—including most Members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Carson began a media campaign on nationally syndicated radio and television programs, eventually netting 328 cosponsors. On April 20, the House passed the bill, 424 to 1. Knowing the civil rights icon was watching House proceedings on her television, Carson ignored a House rule requiring Members to address only the Speaker pro tempore. “Mrs. Parks . . . I am grateful for your steadfastness,” she declared. Carson’s bill was supplanted by a Senate version that was sponsored by Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan. President Clinton signed the bill into law on May 6, 1999. “This is one of the best days of my life,” declared a tearful Carson. “Not for anything I have done to honor her, but the honor Rosa Parks brought to this whole nation.” On June 15, 1999, visitors packed the Capitol Rotunda to attend the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony. Carson was among the dignitaries who spoke at the ceremony, along with President Clinton, who presented the medal to Parks. Carson later helped pass legislation allowing Parks to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda when she died in October 2005. Parks was the first woman to be given this honor.

In late 2007, Carson’s health once again became a concern. The Representative expressed frustration with her regular battle with asthma and diabetes. After missing an important vote due to health problems, Carson noted, “I understand how an athlete feels when they sit one out to recover from an injury. The minutes move slowly, and you want nothing more than to be in for the big game.” In October, Carson took a two-week leave of absence to recover from a leg infection that had required her to traverse the Capitol in a wheelchair. One month later, Carson announced that she had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer during a follow-up examination of her leg. Carson died on December 15, 2007, in her Indianapolis home. She lay in state in the statehouse in Indianapolis on December 21. “Let’s remember Congresswoman Carson by doing the people’s work and fighting for those who don’t have a voice,” said her grandson, André Carson, who later succeeded her in the House. “When you talk about Julia Carson, you’re talking about an American icon. The people’s champ.”