By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief. Coleman trained for 17 years as a reporter with the Call and Post Newspaper and is an investigative and political reporter with a background in legal and scientific reporting. She is also a former 15-year public school biology teacher.
She said in interviews with reporters while lobbying for the Agriculture secretary job that she ultimately did not get that it's time that the White House looks more like America.
“As this country becomes more and more diverse, we’re going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies as those that people like me fit in,” Fudge told Politico. “You know, it’s always ‘We want to put the Black person in labor or HUD.'”
The Majority Whip and the highest ranking Black in terms of a leadership role in the House of Representatives, Clyburn had said that the country's next agriculture, who would lead a $150 billion agriculture department, secretary should be Black.
“We — our forebears — were brought here to develop rural America, the plantations,” said Clyburn to the New York Post.
There has been one Black Agriculture secretary, Mike Espy, a Democrat like Fudge, Clyburn and Biden, a former vice president under former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, and a former Mississippi congressman and former president Bill Clinton appointee who served from 1993-1994, Clinton's first year in office.
Chair of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight, and Department Operations Fudge also had support from the NAACP, organized labor, farmers and the CBC, among others, and had she been selected and subsequently confirmed as Agriculture secretary she would have been the first Black female to hold the post.
Her nomination for HUD secretary comes on the heels of increasing pressure from Black leaders, including congressional Democrats and Congressional Black Caucus members like Clyburn and Civil Rights organizations like the NAACP.
They want Blacks in top level Cabinet positions like secretary and literally took on Biden and reminded him that Blacks put him in office and that adviser and deputy level Cabinet positions alone simply would not do.
They said Blacks should get top level Cabinet positions as Whites traditionally get at the White House.
Biden had scheduled a meeting with the NAACP on Tuesday that was requested by NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who told CNN that his organization and other Civil Rights groups had requested time with Biden and Harris to discuss "the incoming administration and ensuring minority and Civil Rights representation in their agenda."
Biden was diplomatic relative to the controversy with Black leaders that is still brewing while he names members of his Cabinet.
The President-elect said he expects Black leaders to speak out on issues of public concern pertinent to the Black community.
"Their job is to push me," Biden told reporters. "That's their job."
Rep Clyburn hesitated to let Biden off the hook, but told CNN on Monday that he is optimistic.
He said in other interviews with reporters that time will tell whether Biden intends to make do on his campaign promises to Black America.
"I want to see where the process leads to, what it produces," Clyburn told a reporter for the hill in an interview on whether Biden's Cabinet positions thus far have been fair to America's Black community. "But so far it’s not good."
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest, and the most read independent digital news in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
