When Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Carrie Meek, and the rest of the Congressional Black
Caucus protested the business-as-usual anointing of president select Smirk, it was a beautiful sight!
These great Americans were unwilling to go quietly into the coma the GOP have in store for us.  But
they waited in vain for a lone Senator to stand with them. She was no longer there.Senator Carol
Mosely-Braun of Illinois, the first African American woman to serve in the Senate, came to the
Senate in 1992 after her upset primary and general election victories contributed to the ôyear of the
womanö legend.

She was considered by some a fluke, others said she was unqualified.   But she was by no means
business as usual. In her first few months on the job, Mosely-Braun took on none other than Jesse
Helms (R-Klan), earning his undying hatred.Helms wanted to submit an honorary bill to the Senate
to re-approve the charter and logo of the Daughters of the Confederacy.  Standard stuff in the
hallowed halls.  It wasn't a law or binding in anyway.  It was just some gimmicky b.s. to please the
folks back home that all Legislators pass (like Smirk declaring Jesus Day).  These bills, routine
Senate bid-ness, usually pass with a voice vote.  The Daughters of the Confederacy charter had
been passing the Senate since the 1890s always unanimously.  Well, they never had an African
American in the hall before!

As I recall, Mosely-Braun objected that the Daughter's logo featured a prominent Confederate flag.
She said it was unthinkable that the Senate in 1993 would approve a logo and by extensionùan
organization basically dedicated to the fond memory of those who held her ancestors in bondage.
At first Mosely-Braun played it ôcollegial,ö asking Jesse real nice if he'd just not bring this to the
floor for a vote.  But Jesse said, "screw you, I do what I like around here, girlie."

She went to her Senate leaders (remember the Dems were still in the majority), and the leadership said,
"this is how things work around here.  We'll take care of it, so don't worry your little head about it.
Why don't you just go off and sit on your committees and let us take care of Jesse."  So she followed
the rules and did what they told her.  But Jesse was determined to get his way and he brought the
measure to the floor as an amendment to a totally unrelated billùlike a stealth bomb he was just hoping
to plant and pass before it was unnoticed.

Coincidentally, the shrewd little Red neck introduced the amendment when Mosely-Braun was absent from
the chamber.  She was in a committee hearing when she got word that this "amendment" had been introduced.
She rushed to the floor of the nearly empty Senate and asked to speak.  When the chair recognized her,
she refused to relinquish the floor.  It was very unusual that a junior, first-year Senator would filibuster
anything (I guess they are all supposed to be good girls and boys and sit quietly while the adults talk),
so she would have made some waves just for that.  But a black woman taking on the Confederate flag
and Jesse Helms in one fight??  She was swimming in a tidal wave of controversy! Senators ran to the
Chamber from all over the Hill, the vistor's galleries filled up, CNN and C-Span cranked up their
cameras to catch the battle.

She might have been doing the morally right thing, but she could very possibly have been
committing political suicide.  She was risking the rest of her political career for what was basically a
non-binding resolution over a logo, a piece of clip art.Mosely-Braun stood and began to speak.  From
her manner, it was obvious that she was one of the new kids on the block and that she'd been
totally unprepared to step forward like that, that she really had rushed to the floor from a committee
meeting.  Since she had to start speaking without notes or back up material to support her points,
she just spoke from the heart.  She was amazing!  She spoke eloquently and long about her
grandparents in the south and the high honor she felt to be serving in the Senate as their grand-
daughter.  She spoke about what the Confederate flag meant to her as a black woman and how she
was offended that the august Senate of the United States would grant its seal of approval to this
slave-holder's symbol.  It was an affront to the long struggle for Civil Rights and to all those who
died in slavery and at the hands of lynch mobs.  She said she was doing this because she owed it to
her history to stand up and say "no," even if this measure was only considered "business as usual."
And time stopped in the Senate.  No business could be conducted. No one could make her sit down
without 60 votes to do it.  Her staff worked behind the scenes to get her materials organized.

Eventually other Dem senators spoke in support of her filibuster, whenever Mosely-Braun would yield
time.  The Repugs who spoke for Jesse tried to make it all seem like a lot of fuss over a mere
technicality.  After all, the Daughters of the Confederacy was an honorable, wonderful group of
women who did such nice charitable things all over the southùeven in the black areas.  But Mosely-
Braun would have none of it.  She wasn't opposed to the Daughters of Carnage or their works, she
said, only to the fact that the Senate of the United States would give its seal of approval to their
logo, which incorporated a symbol freighted with the anguish of so many African-Americans.

Some might think it took a lot of balls for her to do what she did.  But you don't need balls when
you have ALL the moral high ground.  Who in that chamber could look Mosely-Braun square in the
eyes and defend this symbol of slavery to her?  And what was the reaction of complacent America in
the first flush of Rush Limbaugh and his "nation held hostage" radio broadcasts?  Indifference
mostly.   What was real political dramaùsome considered just a petty argument over nothing at all.
"What's the big deal?  It's a stupid logo for God's sake!  Why doesn't she just shut up?  Who cares?"
But Mosely-Braun stood her ground, defending a principle.  And in the end, she won.
Helms was forced to withdraw his amendment.   But she lost in the end.

Soon the press turned on her.  As her re-election neared,  "troubling questions" (their favorite
smear) began to surface about her trips abroad, campaign funds, the business dealings of her
fiance, who was also her chief of staff (wink, wink), etc., etc.  She lost her Senate seat.

And Jesse took his revenge when President Clinton nominated her to be Ambassador to New Zealand.
Helms held up her nomination for months, citing all those "troubling questions."  She was eventually
confirmed but only after a long fight. So when the CBC walked out of the anointing ceremony, I
wanted so much for Carol Mosely-Braun to still be in the Senate.  I want to believe she would
have done the right thing one more time.  Too bad.  She would have had the moral high ground
in the Senate all to herself once again.