Daily Kos84%
Recognizing Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee’s Caribbean American allyship 24%
By Denise Oliver Velez14%
6/27/2026, 1:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 16 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Indoctrination, and Availability Heuristic, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 19.9% saturation with 111 hits. Analysis detected 721 faulty-reasoning hits from 559 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 36.8% and a BS Rank of 24% (16,693 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 76.30% of the article peer group.
Celebrating Caribbean American ally, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee.
Welcome!
This is the first time I am celebrating a Caribbean American ally in this series, applauding the work of Barbara Lee, mayor of Oakland, California, and former U.S. representative.
**The honorable Barbara Lee**
* Lee was born on July 16, 1946, in El Paso, Texas.
Her biological father, James Lewis, was a veteran of the Korean War; her mother, Mildred Massey, a clerk.
In 1960, Lee’s family moved to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California.
As a teenager, she immersed herself in music and won two music achievement awards from the Rotary Club and the Bank of America.
Lee graduated from San Fernando High School in 1964.
She worked for one year in the California Department of Labor Statistics, and then went on to receive her B.A. degree in psychology from Mills College in 1973 and her M.A. degree in social work from the University of California at Berkeley in 1975.
* Upon graduation, Lee worked for Congressman Ronald V.
Dellums after serving as a legislative intern there during graduate school.
While there, she managed Congressman Dellums’ offices in Washington, D.C. and Oakland, California for eleven years and eventually rose to the position of senior adviser.
In 1990, Lee was elected to the California State Assembly; and, in 1996, she was elected to the California State Senate.
As a Democrat, she worked successfully with California’s Republican administration in those years and sponsored sixty-seven bills that were signed into law by then-Republican Governor Pete Wilson.
Lee’s political agenda focused on issues such as education, public safety, environmental protection, health, labor, and women’s rights.
In 1998, she became the first woman to represent the State of California’s then-9th Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives and served as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus from 2009 to 2011.
She was later elected as the first woman to represent the California’s now-13th Congressional District in 2013.
Lee also published a memoir, Renegade for Peace and Justice: A Memoir of Political and Personal Courage (2008).
**Lee on Caribbean American Heritage Month:**
**Lee’s remarks on the legacy of the Hon.
Shirley Chisholm:**
**Interview with Lee about Caribbean American Heritage Month 2014:**
**On the impact of recent hurricanes on Haiti and the Caribbean:**
One of her key mentors was Ron Dellums:
* As we watch activists from groups like Black Lives Matter make decisions to run for political office, we should also be aware of the history of the men and women who first opened those doors by making the transition from protest to electoral politics.
* While in Congress he was a -founder of both the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus in 1991.
* We need voices in the street, and we need voices in the seats of power—and Ron Dellums represents both.
Whenever I hear people discouraging our young folks about voting, and/or running for elected office, I point to Dellums’ career and continuing activism as a powerful example.
After retiring from Congress, she didn't leave the struggle—instead, she ran for Mayor of Oakland.
**Lee announces victory in Oakland mayoral race:**
You don't have to be Caribbean American to support the various Caribbean American communities in the United States.
Join me in the comments section below to discuss.
Speakers
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Analysis
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