The first Black woman to be nominated as a Presidential candidate has died.
Charlene Mitchell, 92, died on December 14 in Manhattan. Mitchell was the 1968 Presidential candidate of the Communist Party, receiving just over 1,000 votes and finishing 11th among nominated candidates.
Mitchell sought to help the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) build a common cause with both the feminist movement and Black leaders like Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X. While Mitchell said she admired Martin Luther King, Jr., she additionally rejected non-violence as a principle and felt closer to the views of Malcolm X.
A long-time activist, Mitchell first garnered attention as a witness before a panel affiliated with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Mitchell refused to answer questions about the Communist Party or her own views. She denied the investigation’s legitimacy, saying, “It seems to me that if anyone is guilty of any crime or criminal act, she should be called before a jury, a regular court.”
Mitchell broke with the Communist Party in the mid-1990s, feeling that the party was too slow to embrace new outreach methods and was not paying sufficient attention to racial and social justice. Around this time, she was invited by Nelson Mandela, whom she had visited in prison, to South Africa to witness the country’s Presidential election in 1994.
In an interview during her Presidential campaign, Mitchell shared words that will resonate with many third-party and independent political activists, even those who do not agree with her political views. “It’s never easy to be a Communist. It’s never easy to be a revolutionary. To be a revolutionary means you have to have a certain kind of dedication to a movement, to a principle. […] Now, that does not take place with some ease or comfort.”
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1930, Mitchell is survived by two brothers and a son.