About this episode:
The votes are still being tallied, but progressive Democrat and political newcomer Jamaal Bowman is poised to beat out sixteen-term Congressman Eliot Engel in the primary race to represent New York’s 16th Congressional district. The district is the second most unequal in the state; it’s majority Black and Hispanic, but also stretches into some very wealthy, mostly white neighborhoods.
Eliot Engel is white, in his 70s, and chair of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee. And Bowman – who is Black, in his 40s, and a former middle school principal – is part of a new wave of candidates taking on the establishment of the Democratic party. Bowman’s gotten the backing of progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, and the Working Families Party, which recently teamed up with the Movement for Black Lives to form a Political Action Committee.
On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with Jamaal Bowman about why he decided to enter politics and take on one of the most entrenched Democrats in Congress.
Find the transcript here.
Further reading and listening:
- The New York police under Michael Bloomberg scarred me and my family
- Amid U.S. reckoning on race, Black candidates harness voters’ fervor for change
- Into America: Into a New Generation of Black Candidates