Young Black activists are done waiting their turn for political office. They're taking on the 'John Lewis generation' of elder lawmakers who they say are out of touch.

• It's hard to be a young Black activist eyeing political office.
• Running tends to mean taking on a political veteran with plenty of cash and clout. 
• But they say they need a seat at the table to urgently address today's civil-rights issues.
• Read more from Insider's "Red, White, and Gray" series.

The contrast couldn't have been starker. 

Rep. Danny K. Davis, a cane-wielding, salt-and-pepper-headed veteran lawmaker, was running again for a seat he'd held for more than two decades. Kina Collins, a 31-year-old gun-safety advocate and healthcare activist, sought to unseat the 81-year-old congressman her community has empowered since she was in kindergarten.

Collins, a Chicago-area native, said she'd been told repeatedly to wait her turn or run for a lower office until Davis retired. "For as many people who encouraged me to run," she said, "there were equally as many people who tried to discourage me."

Collins ran against Davis anyway. She lost to him in June's Democratic primary by 7 percentage points.

It's the David-and-Goliath scenario that young Black activists eyeing public office face. The power of political incumbency isn't unique to Black communities. But the unwavering reverence for elders typical of them makes it hard — nearly impossible sometimes — for a younger generation to win representation.

"It's a community where you defer to your elders without question," said Nicholas Gaffney, the director of the Center for African American Studies at the University of South Carolina Upstate. "So I think that's just a cultural norm within the Black family that shapes the Black experience and other aspects of life as well, including politics."

The new generation of civil-rights activists must defy decorum to challenge incumbents whom many looked up to but who they now argue should step aside because of their age, questions about their competence — and, sometimes, their scandals.

For youthful firebrands, it's especially daunting to battle elders who participated in the 1960s civil-rights movement. Or a powerful political dynasty like the Clay family in St. Louis, which held power for five decades until 2021, after Cori Bush, now a US representative, toppled it on her second try.

It's the Black Lives Matter generation — partly fueled by anger at the killings of young Black people like Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, and many more — taking on the John Lewis generation, whose work in the 1960s and 1970s laid the foundation for today's civil-rights activism.

Critics of these older incumbents contend that they're out of step with the younger communities they represent. Most members of the Congressional Black Caucus are twice as old as the median Black person living in the US.

"We're very loyal people, and it's hard to switch that loyalty when you have no proven background in doing that same job," said Adrienne Bell, the executive director of the progressive group Brand New Congress.

Four months in the making, Insider's "Red, White, and Gray" series explores the costs, benefits, and dangers of life in a democracy helmed by those of advanced age, where issues of profound importance to the nation's youth and future — technology, civil rights, energy, the environment — are largely in the hands of those whose political primes have passed.

The United States' gerontocracy, where older leaders have consolidated significant power, is particularly notable for Black Americans.

Younger Black people fear their perspective is missing in a US gerontocracy

The median age of Black people in the US was 32 in 2019, compared with the overall median age in the US of 38, according to Pew Research Center. About three in 10 Black Americans were under 20, while about one in 10 were 65 or older.

The Congressional Black Caucus, a powerful voice for Black Americans, is significantly older than those it speaks for. About 40% of the caucus is 70 or older. Nearly two-thirds of the group's members are 60 or older.

Younger people fear their perspective is missing in that mix. They're growing impatient.

"When you have a body that overwhelmingly skews old or overwhelmingly skews white, then you're missing out on those experiences," said Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who's expected to become the first Gen Zer in Congress.

In the St. Louis area, Bush, a nurse, beat Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr., then 63, who'd served in Congress for 20 years, in 2020. Clay had replaced his father, William Lacy Clay Sr., a civil-rights icon and founding Congressional Black Caucus member who had represented the area since 1969.

Bush was at the forefront of the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 that followed the police killing of Michael Brown and accelerated the fight against police brutality in the US.

Clay's critics say he was one of the most absent members of Congress — he missed 6.3% of the votes — and they point out that he didn't participate in the Ferguson protests.  

"I think he would have kept his seat; all he had to do was show up," said Nadia Brown, a political scientist who directs the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University in Washington.

Clay, now a senior policy advisor at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, declined to be interviewed. Bush did not respond to a request for an interview.

Young Black people are far from a monolith. They don't necessarily vote the same way or for the same reasons. Though most are Democrats, a small but growing number of politically ambitious younger Black people are turning to the Republican Party, driven partly by frustration with the Democratic Party or fed up with having to wait their turn.— The GOP has seized on that dissatisfaction and is investing in recruiting voters of color.

Brown argued that they're switching not necessarily because they're aligned with the Republican Party but because it's "a shorter pathway" to public office than waiting "until someone dies in office." The Republican Party appears more welcoming as it tries to expand its minority base.

Those sticking with the Democratic Party are often pushing for ideals such as forgiving student loans, urgent climate action, and demand that states "defund the police," a slogan that makes establishment elders shift in their seats.

Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, said that while the Congressional Black Caucus and the Democratic Party might view these younger leaders as "antagonistic," they should embrace youthful upstarts who have their fingers on the pulse of the issues important to Black people, "the lifeblood of the party."

A majority of Black people surveyed in a Morning Consult/Insider poll — 66% — said they thought there should be age limits for members of Congress, and 75% said they supported term limits for lawmakers. That was about 9 percentage points lower than the percentage of adults overall who said they supported term limits for lawmakers (about 84%). 

Young Black people who've found themselves at the forefront of today's civil-rights issues and want to remain Democrats cite Bush as an inspiration. Many fear their political and civic priorities will be neglected if they don't at least share in the power that older Black leaders have accumulated.

Bringing a fierce urgency to tackling today's civil rights challenges

Millennials and Gen Zers face declining economic mobility and economists project that they'll be worse off financially than their parents and grandparents. Such challenges are compounded for African Americans because of systemic racism.

They're saddled with massive student-loan debt. Rent is skyrocketing. The American dream of homeownership is fading. They've lived through the dot-com bubble, the 2008 recession, and the pandemic-induced economic malaise. Mass shootings are a nearly daily occurrence. Incidents of police brutality, once kept secret, now play out on social media. The criminal-justice system disproportionately imprisons young Black men. And then there's the climate crisis.

"I know what it means to live in a generation where I've had more shooting drills than fire drills," said Frost, who would represent the Orlando-area seat vacated by Rep. Val Demings. "I bring an urgency to these issues that might not be there all the time."

Frost, who became politically active after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, was boosted by several high-profile endorsements, including one from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who told The Hill it was time that "we pass the baton to the new generation of civil rights leaders."

—Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) July 15, 2022

Frost was also backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Ayanna Pressley, and Mondaire Jones. Notably absent from his list of endorsements were older Congressional Black Caucus members.

"The John Lewis generation that came through the civil-rights movement saw the world through a different set of problems that are kind of stale," Gaffney, of the University of South Carolina Upstate, said.

Much of their activism was tied to ensuring the US enforced measures such as the 14th Amendment, which granted African Americans equal rights and protections, and the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which desegregated schools, and fighting for economic opportunity.

While the underlying issues remain, the different set of challenges today's Black activists are confronting makes the generational gap more glaring, Gaffney said.

 'What they wanted was what Bobby brings'

While many activists and scholars say it's time for older leaders to pass the baton, even their critics acknowledge the barrier-breaking ascent of elder Congressional Black Caucus members in a predominantly white body. They say they respect the institutional wisdom and influence these members have amassed over the decades.

"When I grew up, there wasn't a Black person running for anything," said Rep. Danny K. Davis, who was born in Parkdale, Arkansas, in 1941 and moved to Chicago.

He nodded to other Black Democratic trailblazers such as Rep. Maxine Waters, 84; Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois, 75; and Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, the civil-rights icon who died in office at 80 in 2020.

Those elder statesmen and stateswomen, Davis says, have earned trust and recognition in their communities.

That's a tough record for a person in their 20s, 30s, or 40s to beat — and they don't always have the support of the establishment or the backing of major party donors.

"It's hard to get supporters to change from supporting them to now supporting you unless there's a lot of controversy going on or you really can come out and show voting records and prove that they're voting against their community and change attitudes," Bell, of Brand New Congress, said. 

Robert Emmons Jr. knew that unseating Rush at 27 would be a Herculean feat. Rush, a civil-rights activist, founding member of the local Black Panther Party, preacher, and former Chicago City Council member, has been in Congress since 1993, the year Emmons was born. 

Endorsements from vocal climate groups like 350 Action and the Sunrise Movement, gun-violence-prevention organizations, and the Chicago Tribune's editorial board couldn't score Emmons a victory in the 2020 primary.

As a young candidate, Emmons thought he had to "come out swinging" with the best policy ideas, he said, "displaying an immense amount of intellect and my ability to move" a room.

"But my people, what they wanted was what Bobby brings," Emmons, a nonprofit executive, added. "And they feel like Bobby Rush is in their living room when they talk with him, and he has stories, and he's helped them in a way that I wasn't able to prove."

Long before Emmons' long-shot effort, another young man tried and failed to topple Rush: Barack Obama. Rush defeated the then-38-year-old state senator by 30 points in the 2000 Democratic primary.

Obama did not respond to Insider's request for an interview, but he described the experience in his 2020 book, "A Promised Land." 

"Almost from the start, the race was a disaster," the former president wrote. 

Rush had much more name recognition than Obama. Rush's campaign cast Obama as an outsider — a Harvard elitist backed by white folks. Obama remained in the Illinois Senate until 2004 when he ran for and won an open US Senate seat. Four years later, he'd win the presidency.

"Some people said I reminded them of Obama" trying to unseat Rush, Emmons said, chuckling. 

He's not about to disappear into the political abyss, though, and says he'll certainly run again. But while Rush's retirement will leave a vacant seat, Emmons says it's not time yet.  

"I've made the executive decision in my own life to be patient to make sure that I truly believe — and not just my ego — I truly believe I'm the right person at the right time for that," Emmons said.

'They earned it — blood, sweat, and tears'

Critics say longevity in public office breeds complacency and a detachment from the most urgent issues. They argue that older leaders should step away to help mold young leaders.

In Baltimore, Tashi Davis, a 47-year-old program manager in the Naval Air Systems Command, hoped to replace the old guard in a city he says is "crying out" for change.

The Navy veteran ran against a Baltimore-area staple, Kweisi Mfume, for the seat left by Rep. Elijah Cummings' death in 2019. Mfume, 73, beat Davis in the primary in July, 85% to 7%.

"Not to put anything on his age, but he's not in touch with the people," Davis said of Mfume.

Mfume served in Congress from 1987 to 1996 before leaving to lead the NAACP, making way for Cummings. Mfume has for decades weathered Baltimore-area politics and survived scandals of his own. He stepped down from his NAACP role in 2004 shortly after an employee accused him of sexual harassment.

Mfume, whose office declined a request for comment, also beat Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, who at 50 ran to replace her late husband in 2020.

"People get attached to their own power, and you wonder why, if you've been in Congress for 30, 40 years, why are you still there?" Bell, of Brand New Congress, said. "They really need to be doing some soul-searching."

Danny K. Davis, the Illinois congressman, argued that the elders belong where they are, as long as voters keep picking them.

"They earned it — blood, sweat, and tears," he said.

Danny K. Davis points out that the same criticism should be directed at older white lawmakers who have been in office for decades.

"Are they saying it's time for Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden to go away and hide or Mitch McConnell to go away and hide?" he adds. He says seniority in Congress comes with appointments to influential leadership roles. "You don't get to be chairman of Financial Services in two years or three years or four years," he said. "It just does not happen."

Danny K. Davis is chairman of the Worker And Family Support Subcommittee of the budget-writing House Ways and Means panel.

Nothing is stopping young people from running, he said, but "nobody is going to roll over for them."

But the world is rapidly changing as the old guard sticks around. And Gaffney says it's easy to get stuck in the time in which these older leaders came of age.

"It's like music," Gaffney said, citing his own affinity for Outkast's music 30 years after the hip-hop duo's debut. "You kind of get trapped in a moment in time." And that, he says, frames the way one sees life and makes decisions. 

To wait your turn or to shake up the statusquo?

Mitchell, of the Working Families Party, said that "incumbency shouldn't be an impenetrable barrier to political change."

The powerful Black Caucus started as a disruption of the status quo in 1971. Many of its members had been at the forefront of civil-rights struggles.

"If we subscribe to this idea that people should wait their turn, many of the leaders wouldn't be there," Mitchell added.

Karl Brinson, the president of the Chicago Westside Branch of the NAACP, says it's not about waiting for one's turn but the difficulty of building from the ground up.

Brinson, a lifelong Chicagoan, has voted all his life for Danny K. Davis, saying a deciding factor for him was his familiarity with Davis and congressional Democrats' seniority system for leadership appointments. Kina Collins, he argued, would have had to start from scratch while leadership roles went to older white lawmakers who've "sat there for eons."

"And sometimes that can be very detrimental to us as a Black community," Brinson said. 

Brison, who also knows Collins, said he was honest with her about his plan to vote for Davis.

"I respect her being courageous and making her voice heard," he said of her, adding, "Sometimes you get stagnated, you get jaded, you get complacent; sometimes it takes a challenge like that to excite the old guard."

Collins, whose activism helped force the Chicago Police Department to release video footage of the 2014 killing of Laquan McDonald, says her run was less about age and more about her perception that Davis didn't have his pulse on the issues of the day.

Davis dismissed Collins as someone handpicked by political groups from outside his district. "Nobody knew her in our community," he said. "Leadership is not decreed. You have to earn it, and you have to prove it."

An evolving Black Caucus struggles to embrace youthful firebrands

The Congressional Black Caucus is reckoning with a leftward shift it's struggled to embrace. Donald Trump's 2016 victory sparked outrage that drove more women and younger Black people to run for office.

The following two election cycles ushered in more diverse and progressive candidates. More are on the way this year.

The caucus has also recently lost some of its respected stalwarts, such as John Lewis, who died in office 33 years after becoming a member of Congress; he was the last living speaker from the 1963 March on Washington. Elijah Cummings died at 68 in 2019. Alcee Hastings of Florida died at 84 last year. Bobby Rush and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, 86, have said they will retire at the end of their terms.

Nineteen of the 58 members of the Black Caucus have been in Congress for at least 15 years. Twelve have served for more than 20 years, with Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate from Washington, DC, and Maxine Waters in their 31st year and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and four others in their 29th.

Thirty-five, or 60% of the members are 60 or older. Those older than 70 account for 40% of the caucus. Five are in their 80s.

The young blood that's come in includes Reps. Joe Neguse, Lauren Underwood, Ritchie Torres, and Mondaire Jones — all in their 30s. Torres and Jones are the first out gay Black men in Congress. The caucus also now includes Ilhan Omar, 39, a Somali American immigrant.

The mostly moderate caucus establishment has been slow to welcome them and has at times backed older white incumbents over younger Black activists.

The caucus endorsed Michael Capuano over then-44-year-old Ayanna Pressley in Massachusetts in 2018. Capuano, 66 at the time, had represented the area for 20 years.

John Lewis, who'd been in Congress since 1987, visited the Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston to campaign for Capuano.

"People who have been around for a while, they know their way around," Lewis said, according to The New York Times. "They know where all the bodies are buried, and they know how to get things done."

The symbolism of Lewis rallying for Capuano at a prominent Black church where Martin Luther King Jr. had once been a preacher was jarring for many in the majority-nonwhite district.

Pressley beat Capuano in the primary by 17 points and became the first African American woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress.

The caucus in 2020 snubbed Jamaal Bowman and endorsed Eliot Engel, then 73, who had been in Congress since 1989. Bowman, then 44, defeated Engel to represent New York's 16th District.

Shortly after his primary victory, Bowman endorsed Cori Bush's run against William Lacy Clay Jr., infuriating some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Politico reported.

"Everyone has to make those decisions based on their own preferences and principles," Bowman said of his endorsement. "I think some of that does reflect a generational difference if you will. For me, it was a no-brainer."

He sees an opportunity for elder and younger Black lawmakers to learn from each other and continue to fight for civil rights.

"I am part of the group that has expanded the CBC and helped it to grow," Bowman said. "I think it's a beautiful thing."

'The gatekeeping is real'

In West Chicago, where Kina Collins was challenging Danny K. Davis for the second time in 2020, high-profile establishment Democrats endorsed the 12-term incumbent. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled there to stump for Davis. Jeffries, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, is considered next in line for House speaker.

Some critics see irony in Jeffries' move considering how he got to Congress.

A decade ago, in 2012, Jeffries tried to oust Ed Towns, who had been in Congress for 30 years. Jeffries, 41 at the time, criticized Towns' long tenure.

"We know what we've gotten over the last 30 years from the congressperson, and again, I respect his service," he said of Towns, who was 78 at the time. "You can't continue to do the same thing and expect different results."

Towns later retired, making way for Jeffries to win the race.

The Congressional Black Caucus, along with the Democratic establishment, has backed older candidates even when there's virtually no risk of the seat falling to a Republican candidate, such as in Davis' district. 

"The gatekeeping is real," Nadia Brown, of Georgetown, said. And it's not just "wait your turn," she added — sometimes there's nasty backlash and whisper campaigns that "prohibit people who haven't played the game from getting in."

It's a double-edged sword.

While some have called for Black elders to make way for leaders with new experiences, there's no denying the power that senior members like Clyburn and Waters yield. They've built the Congressional Black Caucus into a crucial voting bloc that can torpedo legislation and were credited with helping Joe Biden win in 2020.

Gaffney described the task ahead for young Black politicians coming to Congress as rebuilding that seniority, history, and institutional knowledge  — "like building street cred."

A spokesperson for the Congressional Black Caucus did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

'The return for your efforts may not be winning the first time'

Backers of younger Black candidates advise them, even after losing, to remain engaged in their communities as if they're still running; it keeps them visible as they prepare for another attempt.

It may take several tries. 

"The return for your efforts may not be winning the first time," Bell said. "It's really idealistic to think that you're going to be able to win against the third-highest-ranking Democrat in Congress the first time."

Brand New Congress, which was formed in 2016 by alumni of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, has backed candidates like Bush, Bowman, Frost, and Florida's Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.

Cherfilus-McCormick ran twice — in 2018 and 2020 — against Alcee Hastings, who'd represented his Florida community since 1993. It was only after Hastings died in April 2021 that she was able to win in a crowded special election to replace him.

Cherfilus-McCormick is expected to win a full term in November. She didn't respond to a request for an interview.

A groundswell of grassroots groups and political action committees — such as the New Georgia Project, Black Girls Vote, Black PAC, Brand New Congress, and Justice Democrats — has worked in recent years to empower young voters and support diverse candidates.

Waleed Shahid, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, says that while the organization does not necessarily target predominantly nonwhite districts, it focuses on areas "where there's energy for change."

"Typically there is a longtime incumbent who's been there for decades and younger people are feeling they're not getting a chance to rise to the ranks," Shahid said.

Black Girls Vote, founded in 2015, focuses on getting young Black people politically engaged, including by working with colleges where students are newly able to vote.

Its founder, Nykidra "Nyki" Robinson, said young people are in a position to change the outcomes of elections. 

"These young people are now talking to the elected officials … but eventually they may get the urge to run for office," Robinson added.

Political action committees and activist groups are also empowering young people to hold long-standing lawmakers accountable for how they vote or show up for their communities after winning.

"My hope is that things are changing," Nadia Brown said. "It's a full-throated measure that's happening now, and my hope is that we will see this pay off."