🚨 Before Kamala. Before Chisholm. Before anyone — CHARLOTTA BASS said YES to herself in 1952.

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]They lied to you in history class. You know Rosa Parks, you know Martin Luther King Jr., you know Harriet Tubman, but do you know Charlotta Bass? Because in 1952, [music] 20 years before Shirley Chisholm even ran for president and 68 years before Kamala Harris made history, a black woman already raised her hand and said, "I am [music] running for vice president of the United States."

[00:00:29]Her name was Charlotta [music] Spears Bass. She was a newspaper publisher, the first black woman to own and operate a newspaper [music] in the United States, the California Eagle. She was a civil rights warrior who fought police brutality, housing discrimination, and racial [music] injustice decades before it was a hashtag.

[00:00:53]She ran on the Progressive Party ticket alongside presidential candidate Vincent Hallinan, and her campaign slogan, "Win or lose, we win by raising the issues."

[00:01:05]She didn't just run. She dared an entire nation to see her. And [music] what did they do? They buried her. They erased her. They let generations of black children grow up never knowing her name.

[00:01:20]While little black girls were told to dream smaller, Charlotta Bass had already broken the ceiling they didn't even know existed. This is not just black history. This is American history.

[00:01:34]And it was stolen from you. Share this until Charlotta Bass is a name every child knows.

[00:01:42]Until she's in textbooks. Until she's on walls. Until she is never forgotten again.

[00:01:51]Because she didn't run so we could forget her. She ran so we could fly.