Unfamiliar_Word t1_jaji4ua wrote on March 1, 2023 at 9:45 PM

Reply to comment by Sensitive_Job_7164 in Meet Joanna McClinton, PA’s first Black woman House speaker by PienotPi

Why shouldn't it matter? It might not be the most momentous of occasions, but it's not insignificant given that there have been 142 Speakers prior to Johanna McClinton, but no women and only on other Black Pennsylvanian (K. Leroy Irvis).

If nothing also, given how prominent race has been throughout American history, especially in its politics, it seems naïve to think to feign its irrelevance. It's not making, "everything," about race to note the significance of somebody from a people who have been abused and oppressed throughout American history attaining a position of significant authority.

WikiSummarizerBot t1_jaji6qa wrote on March 1, 2023 at 9:45 PM

K. Leroy Irvis

>Kirkland Leroy Irvis (December 27, 1919 – March 16, 2006) was a teacher, activist and politician based in Pennsylvania; he was the first African American to serve as a speaker of the house in any state legislature in the United States since Reconstruction. (John Roy Lynch (1847–1939) of Mississippi had been the first African American to hold that position. ) Irvis, a Democrat, represented Pittsburgh in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1958–1988.

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