Carol Moseley Braun

Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun, also sometimes Moseley-Braun (born August 16, 1947), is an American diplomat, politician, and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999. Moseley Braun was the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, the first African-American U.S. senator from the Democratic Party and the first female U.S. senator from Illinois.

Moseley Braun was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1979 to 1988 and served as Cook County Recorder of Deeds from 1988 to 1992. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992 after defeating Senator Alan J. Dixon in a Democratic primary. Moseley Braun served one term in the Senate and was defeated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald in 1998.

Following her Senate tenure, Moseley Braun served as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa from 1999 to 2001. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2004 U.S. presidential election; she withdrew from the race prior to the Iowa caucuses. In November 2010, Moseley Braun began a campaign for mayor of Chicago to replace retiring incumbent Richard M. Daley. She placed fourth in a field of six candidates, losing the 2011 election to Rahm Emanuel. In January 2023, she was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as a member and chair of the board of directors for the United States African Development Foundation, and began her tenure in April 2024. She left her role soon after the beginning of the Second presidency of Donald Trump in 2025.

Early life, education, family, and early career

Carol Elizabeth Moseley was born in Chicago. She attended public and parochial schools. She attended Ruggles School for elementary school, and she attended Parker High School (now the site of Paul Robeson High School) in Chicago. Her father, Joseph J. Moseley, was a Chicago police officer and jail guard and her mother, Edna A. (Davie), was a medical technician in a hospital. Both her parents were Catholic, and Moseley was raised in the faith.

The family lived in a segregated middle-class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Her parents divorced when she was in her teens, and she lived with her grandmother.

Moseley began her undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, but dropped out after four months. graduating in 1969. Moseley earned a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972.

In 1973, Moseley married Michael Braun, whom she had met in law school.

Moseley Braun worked as a prosecutor in the United States Attorney's office in Chicago from 1973 to 1977. As an Assistant United States Attorney, she worked primarily in the civil and appellate law areas. Her work in housing, health policy, and environmental law won her the Attorney General's Special Achievement Award. She stopped working as a prosecutor after her son's birth, and briefly became a homemaker before being persuaded to run for the Illinois state legislature. As a state representative, she became recognized as a champion for liberal social causes. In 1988, she was elected Cook County Recorder of Deeds, a post she held for four years. Democratic candidate Albert Hofeld's campaign ran many anti-Dixon ads, and Moseley Braun won the Democratic primary. On November 3, 1992, Moseley Braun became the first African American woman to be elected to the United States Senate, Moseley Braun was also the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois and the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat.

Moseley Braun was a one-term senator, losing to Republican Peter Fitzgerald in her re-election bid in 1998.

Tenure

thumb|right|Moseley Braun greeting President [[Bill Clinton in March 1993]]

thumb|right|Female Senators of the Democratic Party, 1993. Top row (L-R): Sen. [[Patty Murray (D-WA), Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Bottom row: Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)]]

Moseley Braun is the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. Along with Republican Edward Brooke, she was one of two African Americans to serve in the Senate in the 20th century. Moseley Braun was the sole African American in the Senate during her tenure.

Despite her reputation as a liberal Democrat, Moseley Braun possessed something of a centrist record on economic issues. She voted for the 1993 budget package and against the welfare reform laws passed in 1996, but on many other matters she was more conservative. Moseley Braun voted in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and lawsuit reform measures like the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (she was also among the minority of Democrats to support the even more controversial Common Sense Product Liability and Legal Reform Act of 1995). She also voted contrary to the interests of the more populist wing of the party by voting for the Freedom to Farm Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Like her Illinois colleague, fellow Democrat Paul Simon, she voted in favor of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the United States Constitution. Moseley Braun also voted to place a nuclear spent fuel storage facility in Nevada; this move was strongly opposed by many Democrats, especially future Majority Leader Harry Reid.

On social issues, however, Moseley Braun was significantly more liberal than many of her fellow senators. She was strongly pro-choice, voting against the ban on partial-birth abortions and the restrictions on funding in military bases for abortions. She also voted against the death penalty and in favor of gun control measures. Moseley Braun was one of only fourteen to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act. She delivered a eulogy for Thurgood Marshall in January 1993.

Moseley Braun was the subject of a 1993 Federal Election Commission investigation over $249,000 in unaccounted-for campaign funds. The agency found some small violations, but took no action against Moseley Braun, citing a lack of resources. Moseley Braun only admitted to bookkeeping errors. The Justice Department turned down two requests for investigations from the IRS.

Women were not allowed to wear pants on the U.S. Senate floor until 1993. In 1993, Senators Moseley Braun and Barbara Mikulski wore pants onto the floor in defiance of the rule. Soon after, female support staff followed their example. Later that year, the rule was amended by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Martha Pope to allow women to wear pants on the floor so long as they also wore jackets. Swayed by Moseley Braun's argument, the Senate rejected the UDC's application to renew its patent.

In 1996, Moseley Braun made a private trip to Nigeria, where she met with dictator Sani Abacha. Despite U.S. sanctions against that country due to Abacha's actions, the Senator neither notified nor registered her trip with the State Department. She subsequently defended Abacha's human rights record in Congress. Her former fiancé Kgosie Matthews, who also served on her campaign staff in violation of U.S. immigration regulations, had been a lobbyist for the Nigerian government; Matthews would later leave the country. She paid Matthews, a native of South Africa, a salary of $15,000 a month during the campaign.

In 1998, after George Will wrote a column reviewing the allegations of corruption against her, Moseley Braun responded to Will's comments, saying that "I think because he couldn't say nigger, he said corrupt". She also compared Will to a Ku Klux Klansman, saying: "I mean this very sincerely from the bottom of my heart: He can take his hood and put it back on again, as far as I'm concerned". Later, Moseley Braun apologized for her remarks. President Clinton nominated Moseley Braun to be the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Although her nomination ran into token opposition from her old adversary, Jesse Helms, and from the senator who defeated her, Peter Fitzgerald, the Senate confirmed her on November 10, 1999, in a 96–2 vote. She served in these roles until 2001.

2004 presidential campaign

thumb|Moseley Braun campaign logo

Exploratory committee and campaign launch

Analysts had speculated that Moseley Braun was preparing for a potential run to reclaim her former Senate seat in the 2004 United States Senate election in Illinois. However, in January 2003, Braun decided against running for the U.S. Senate again. On February 18, 2003, she announced her intention to run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, doing so in a speech delivered at the University of Chicago Law School. Braun thereafter launched an exploratory committee for a presidential campaign. She had, in the days leading up to this announcement, made her first campaign-season visits to the early primary and caucus states of New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina. In her announcement speech she declared, "It's time to take the 'men only' sign off the White House door." She joined an already sizable field of candidates for the Democratic nomination. Many, however, regarded her campaign to be a long shot, with many also regarding it as more of a vanity campaign then a serious effort for the presidency. Her proposal was for such a system to be paid for by direct income tax. She ran in general opposition to the measures implemented by the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11, arguing that their policies were exploiting Americans' fear after the attacks to put in place "an extreme agenda, dangerous and divisive" and to take away civil liberties. With that primary's traditionally sizable black electorate, it was seen to be a likely test of black enthusiasm for her candidacy. Moseley Braun was one of only two major black contenders for the Democratic nomination in 2004, with the other being Al Sharpton. Moseley Braun's campaign would ultimately end up focusing their efforts on the African-American and female vote, which they regarded to be her base of support. Her campaign was instead largely run by a small number of volunteers. It took until July 1, 2003, for her campaign to hire a formal campaign manager. As the race developed, she continued to trail the other candidates in terms of fundraising. By July 2003, she had only raised $214,000, continuing to be lowest-performing of the nine major Democratic contenders in terms of fundraising. By November 2003, she had only raised $342,518. In total, her campaign would ultimately raise just under $600,000.

In mid-November 2003, Moseley Braun hired Patricia Ireland to serve as her campaign's new manager.

Moseley Braun never performed higher than single-digit numbers in polls for the primaries. Moseley Braun also failed to qualify for the ballot in a number of the scheduled state primaries and caucuses. and four days before the Iowa caucuses, Moseley Braun dropped out of the race and endorsed Howard Dean's candidacy. Shortly before Moseley Braun withdrew, her own campaign manager, Patricia Ireland, had publicly conceded that she no longer believed Moseley Braun stood any chance of capturing the Democratic nomination. Upon her departure from the race, Ron Fournier of the Associated Press wrote that, "she leaves the race after having made no impact on it, except for some bright moments in the presidential debates". In early 2011, two potentially strong African-American candidates—U.S. Rep. Danny Davis and State Sen. James Meeks—left the race and endorsed Moseley Braun, making her the so-called consensus black candidate. This came after a discussions between Moseley Braun and the other two candidates where it was decided that Moseley Braun, with her profile as a former US Senator, ambassador, and presidential candidate, would be the strongest of the three candidates.

Moseley Braun appeared likely to be a strong contender for the mayoralty. She raised approximately $705,000, while Rahm Emanuel raised over $15 million. Van-Pelt Watkins had once been addicted to cocaine, but had been clean for 30 years. despite the fact that Jane Byrne had already served as Chicago's first female mayor.

Later political activities

In the 2016 Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Maryland, Moseley Braun endorsed Donna Edwards. In the 2019 Chicago mayoral election runoff, Moseley Braun endorsed Toni Preckwinkle. In the 2023 Chicago mayoral election runoff, Moseley Braun endorsed Brandon Johnson.

In the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Moseley Braun endorsed Joe Biden. During the November 2019 Democratic presidential debate, Biden mentioned her endorsement, misspeaking and mistakenly referring to her as "the only African-American woman who's ever been elected to the United States Senate", only to be quickly corrected by his opponents, including Kamala Harris, who herself happened to be the second (and, at the time, only other) African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. This gaffe of Biden's attracted significant media attention. Moseley Braun traveled to various states to campaign on Biden's behalf. At the 2020 Democratic National Convention, she was responsible for announcing Illinois' votes in the roll call. After Biden's victory in the general election (with Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate), Moseley Braun made it publicly known that she was interested in being his Secretary of the Interior. She also expressed interest in holding some other role in his administration. Biden opted to nominate Deb Haaland for Secretary of the Interior. Soon after Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential election, Moseley Braun voiced her support for Vice President Harris' candidacy to be nominated for president at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

United States African Development Foundation

thumb|Official portrait, 2024

In January 2023, Biden nominated Moseley Braun to be member and chair of the board of directors of the United States African Development Foundation. In January 2024, Biden again put forth the nomination. The nomination to serve on the board was confirmed on March 8, 2024. Her term on the board will extend until September 22, 2029. She was sworn in as board member and chair in April 2024.

Work outside government and politics

In 2005, Moseley Braun founded an organic products company known as Good Food Organics. Good Food Organics was the parent company of Ambassador Organics.

Trailblazer: Perseverance in Life and Politics, a memoir authored by Moseley Braun, is scheduled to be published on January 21, 2026, by Hanover Square Press.

Personal life

thumb|Moseley Braun speaking in Chicago in 2019

In September 1998, Lauryn Kaye Valentine applied for permission to change her name to Carol Moseley Braun. Valentine cited the former senator as her hero and promised not to "dishonor [the] name". The change was made official. That December, however, Valentine put her name forward as a candidate for alderman of Chicago's 37th Ward. Before the election, a Circuit Court judge rescinded the name change, forcing Valentine to revert to her original name. Valentine was later ruled ineligible to run, as she was not a registered voter at the time because of her name changes.

In April 2007, Braun suffered a broken wrist when a mugger emerged from bushes near her front door to steal her purse. Braun resisted and fell during the struggle, fracturing her left wrist. The mugger was chased off by a University of Chicago student while his girlfriend called 911. Braun was later treated at a hospital and released. A man was later charged with the crime and was sentenced to 20 years in prison on July 11, 2008.

Braun's financial problems made headlines in October 2012 when it was revealed that her home was in foreclosure and that she had not made any mortgage payments for over a year. Before she was evicted, she sold her house for approximately $200,000 less than the amount she still owed on her mortgage loan.

Electoral history

1988 Cook County Recorder of Deeds

1992 United States Senate election in Illinois<br />

1998 United States Senate election in Illinois<br />

Op-eds authored

70 Former U.S. senators: The Senate is Failing to Perform its Constitutional Duties (co-signed with 69 other former U.S. senators) –published by The Washington Post on February 25, 2020
Democrats Aren’t Just Celebrating Black History. We’re Making It. –published by the Chicago Tribune on February 23, 2024

References

External links

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Financial information (federal office) at OpenSecrets.org
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Works by or about Carol Moseley Braun in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
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