Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) didn’t lose many battles, but she succumbed to pancreatic cancer on July 19. She tackled the disease like she tackled so many other challenges, working with her doctors on a treatment plan, making the most of the time that she had, and speaking with optimism about the future. Even though she had been ill, took to the streets to provide food, baby formula, and other supplies in the wake of Hurricane Beryl. And until the end, she worked. I know a journalist who had an appointment set up with her a few days after her death. Her office called Wednesday before her Thursday death to cancel. What optimism to think that, even battling a deadly disease, she might still want to do an interview. What faith, resilience, focus to keep working through it all.
Sheila said she wanted to be an “Energizer Bunny” for Houston, and indeed she was. She was also an Energizer Bunny for social and economic justice. The congresswoman was able to get federal appropriations for her beloved 18th Congressional District because she worked tirelessly to get things done. She was especially effective around race matters, successfully lobbying President Biden to make Juneteenth, the day when enslaved Black Texans learned that they were free, a national holiday. She also took HR40, the Congressional bill that would study reparations and develop remedies for the economic injustice African American people experienced because of enslavement and its aaft4ermath, to the point that more than two hundred members of Congress cosponsored it. President Biden should sign an executive order to implement HR 40, especially now, in tribute to our fallen Congresswoman. It would be fitting recognition to a sister who took the baton that Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) passed her and ran with it.
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee was selected by Congressman Conyers to shepherd the legislation he introduced in every congressional session since 1989. She never failed to acknowledge his effort and made herself available to reparations activist. She was especially helpful to the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC), which was created in 2015, partly to support HR 40. (Full disclosure – I am a member of NAARC). She traveled to many of our town hall meetings, that took place all over the country. Always a forceful and fiery speaker, she made a solid case for reparations. From her perch on the Judiciary Committee, she convened a hearing on June 19, 2019, the first time Congress held such a hearing. (Again, full disclosure, I was among those testifying at that hearing).
Reparations and racial justice weren’t the only things that impassioned the Texas Congresswoman. She was passionate about children and their opportunities, supporting Head Start, children’s health, and women’s rights. She fought to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which first passed in 1994, but subsequently lapsed. She was successful in getting it expanded and reauthorized. She supported the CROWN Act, legislation that prevents discrimination against people because of their natural hair styles and spoke out when a young Texas man was put out of school because of the length of his dreads.
It seems that no issue was too big or too small for Sheila. Her office provided excellent constituent services, but beyond services, she offered the personal touch attending weddings and funerals and neighborhood gatherings. Yet she shone on the big stage, on the. Floor of Congress, in her Africa work, in the world. She worked hard, she shone brightly, She cared for our nation, for Black people, justice.
And Sheila Jackson Lee was my friend. I was blessed to have a personal relationship with the fierce, fiery, forceful, fantastic and, yes, fashionable fighter. The sister could rock some African attire! She stood on strong shoulders – that 18th district had previously been represented by the esteemed Barbara Jordan and the impactful Mickey Leland. She once told a reporter she had both of her predecessors “in her soul”, modeling her work after theirs. Now, she is in our soul, that Energizer Bunny for Justice. Her memory is both a blessing and an inspiration.
Featured image: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, right, speaks during a hearing about reparation for the descendants of slaves before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, at the Capitol on June 19, 2019.
