How to Win Elections in a System ‘Not Set Up for Us’ | The Atlantic

[dropcap]ATLANTA[/dropcap]— It was midway through a sticky Georgia Saturday, and Jessica Byrd was dispelling myths about the way black women are supposed to run for office in 2018. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″]

Jessica Byrd, the founder of Three Point Strategies, leads a session during this year’s Black Campaign School. Melissa Golden.

About 120 candidates, operatives, and candidates of the future—both men and women—sat on green plastic chairs inside a building that normally houses an environmental nonprofit in east Atlanta. This was the second annual Black Campaign School, and these were its students—all aspirants in a fledgling project to increase black representation in a country where 90 percent of all elected public officials are white.

The three-day training program was backed by the major Democratic campaign committees and allied groups like Planned Parenthood and emily’s List. But it was also, in some ways, a challenge to them. The school offered a forum where up-and-coming black politicians could share their common struggles of trying to advance in a political system that, as one candidate put it, “was not designed with us in mind.”