Charlene Mitchell, first Black woman to run for president, dies at 92

Charlene Mitchell, the first Black woman to run for the White House, has passed away at age 92. 

Mitchell died on Dec. 14 in a Manhattan nursing home, her son Steven Mitchell confirmed, The New York Times reports. 

Mitchell joined the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1946 at age 16 and served as a young revolutionary activist at home and abroad. The Ohio native also spent over 60 years in Harlem, leading campaigns for freedom and equal justice, according to Post News Group.

The late James Baldwin once stated, “There is no question in my mind that Charlene Mitchell remains the Joan of Arc of Harlem because she dares to utter unspeakable truth to power.”

During her time in Los Angeles, she founded an all-Black chapter of the Communist Party called the Che-Lumumba Club after Argentine Marxist Che Guevara and the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, The Times reports. 

Thirty-eight-year old Mitchell was the Communist Party’s presidential nominee in 1968, becoming the first Black woman to run for president. Her White House ambitions came four years before those of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to seek the presidential nomination on a major-party ticket.

“The country’s rulers want to keep Black and white working people apart,” she said in a campaign speech. “The Communist Party is dedicated to the idea that — whatever the difficulties — they must be brought together, or neither can advance.”

Throughout her political career, Mitchell’s passions included feminism, civil rights, police violence and economic inequality and much of her advocacy work was in support of the underdog, according to The Times. In the 1970s, she rallied around Joan Little, a North Carolina inmate who was acquitted of murdering a prison guard who sexually assaulted her. She also lobbied on behalf of the Wilmington 10 in North Carolina, a group of nine Black men and one woman convicted of arson and conspiracy in 1971. They were later exonerated.

In the 1980s, Mitchell distanced herself from the Communist Party as its focus shifted away from her core mission of fighting against racial and social injustices.

“I don’t think I have ever known someone as consistent in her values, as collective in her outlook on life, as firm in her trajectory as a freedom fighter,” Davis said at a 2009 event honoring Mitchell.

Mitchell famously campaigned for the release of civil rights activist Dr. Angela Davis — who would be acquitted in 1972 — following her arrest in 1970 on weapons charges related to the killing of a Marin County judge. Mitchell, who lead Davis’ defense committee, used the experience to create the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR). Its mission was to fight against police brutality and the biased legal system.

Mitchell is survived by her son and two brothers, Deacon Alexander and Mike Wolfson, The Times reports.

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