Updated June 27, 2025 at 2:28 PM CDT
Carol Moseley Braun is a woman of many firsts.
After serving as an Illinois state representative from 1978 to 1988, Moseley Braun became the recorder of deeds for Cook County, Illinois, in 1988 — making her the first Black person elected to an executive position in the county. In 1992, she became the first woman from Illinois and the first Black woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Then in 1999, she became the first senator to serve as U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand.
These titles have earned Moseley Braun a place in history books — a journey of accomplishments that she recounts in her memoir, Trailblazer Perseverance in Life and Politics, which details how her identity shaped her experiences in her personal and professional life.
In a conversation with Morning Edition, Moseley Braun spoke with NPR's Michel Martin about her historic career, the obstacles that helped shape her legacy, and the factors that fueled her determination to create change.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Martin: It's Ambassador Moseley Braun, because in addition to having been a U.S. senator — and a number of other offices in politics — you are also U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. So you've been out of public life for a while. What made you want to tell your story now? Was there any particular thing pushing you?
Moseley Braun: My little grandbaby. He's seven now. He came [to me] and said, "Grandma Carol, are you famous?" I tried to explain it to him. And he was only six at the time. So I said, "You know what? I think that now is the time."
Martin: Why did you decide to get into elected office to begin with?
Moseley Braun: I've been assistant United States attorney, and I had my son. And so I was with him. So I was here [in Illinois] with him, I was just being a homemaker which was fine. I really enjoyed it. But there were people in the neighborhood who were protesting the removal of the bobalinks from Jackson Park — and I joined them one day. The bobalinks are these little rice birds. Originally from South Carolina, but somehow they wound up here in Chicago. And so some of the people with whom I was marching said, "We think you should run for state representative, our state representative is retiring." So at first I demurred and wouldn't do it. But then after I got challenged, there was a there's a pundit here in Chicago who said, ''Don't run. You can't possibly win, the blacks won't vote for you because you're not part of the Chicago machine. The whites won't vote for you because you're black –and nobody's going to vote for you because you're only a woman." And so that was my inspiration. That's what did it.
Martin: And nobody thought you could win. Except you.
Moseley Braun: Nobody thought I could win.
Martin: But one of the things that was also interesting in the book, is that [there were] so many jobs that you had. There was a point at which nobody believed it was you [who] actually had that job. You tell the story about being an assistant U.S. attorney and coming home from one of those cold Chicago winters trying to get home and you're trying to hail a taxi. This is pre-Uber, of course. And this police officer keeps riding by you saying. What was he saying? Get off that corner?
Moseley Braun: Give up that corner! Give up that corner!
Martin: Give up that corner — he thought you were a hooker. Because why else would a black woman dressed up?
Moseley Braun: Because I was a black woman standing on the corner in downtown Chicago.
Martin: And then you talked about your first day at the Senate when you tried to get to your office. There was a Capitol Police officer who wouldn't let you in.
Moseley Braun: Well there were always two Capitol Police standing on the doors to the Senate. The first guy said, "you can't go in there." I looked at him quizzically, like, "Why? Why can't I?" Then the other guy piped in and said, 'Oh, she's the new senator from Illinois." And so that backed his colleague off.
Martin: I don't want people to think that the entire memoir is just filled with these insults directed at you. Although there were many like, for example, the senator who would sing Dixie in Your Presence and so forth — so there's that. But there were some structural issues that you also pointed out that made your job more difficult than for other people. For example, the amount of mail that you got. Could you talk about that?
Moseley Braun: The mail was really a challenge because it was so much of it.They gave me a room in the basement of the Capitol that was filled with these duffel bags full of mail. There was no way I could possibly do all of that by myself. And so I went to leadership and I asked for some help. And one guy said to me, "Well, Ted Kennedy gets a lot of mail and, you know, he handles it." I'm thinking like you telling me I got a function like Ted Kennedy does — I was too out done.
Martin: But they never gave you additional staff just to deal with.
Moseley Braun: They did not.
Martin: And do you think that played some role over the course of your tenure –the kind of angst that sometimes built up around you — that people felt that you weren't doing the job?
Moseley Braun: It might have. It might have. But again, you can't make everybody happy. But if you do the job, then people can't take potshots at you.
Martin: Well, they did, though.
Moseley Braun: Yeah, they did.
Martin: Why do you think you served only one term?
Moseley Braun: Because of that. There was such expectations, and people expected me to come to every chicken fry in the state, and I couldn't do it. I did as much as I could, but I couldn't do it all.
Martin: Do you think that's why at the end of the day, the expectations of you were just greater than you could as one person fulfill?
Moseley Braun: That's part of it. But I think it's also what standard you [are] being held to. Again, I was kind of the duckbill platypus of the Senate in the sense that I was not only a woman, I am black, too. So you put those things together. And what you have is a set of expectations that border on the unreasonable, that border on the trailblazing and the groundbreaking, if you will. And so I did my very best to live up to those expectations. But it was not always possible.
Martin: Is there anything you wish you'd done differently?
Moseley Braun: Well, not really. I did the best job I could while I was planted. I really did. And I still am. I'm not dead yet. I spoke at a grammar school and the school was named after me. One little boy said, "Hey, there goes Carol Moseley Braun," and his little friend turned around and said, "You she's not dead yet." So I'm still here. So while I'm still here and able to tell the story, that's why the book made sense to do.
Martin: One of the things about being first is often makes things easier for people who are next. Is there something in particular that you think made it easier for them by the fact that you went first?
Moseley Braun: I hope the fact that I deflected all of the brickbats that I don't think anybody's going to be held to the same kind of standard I was being held to, in terms of production. I hope that has really provided a roadmap to people who come after us. Don't get distracted with all the noise around you — because there will be lots of noise around you. But if you don't let that distract you and just keep focusing on what the people elected you to do, you'll be fine.
The radio version of this story was produced by Destinee Adams and edited by Adriana Gallardo. Treye Green edited the digital.
Copyright 2025 NPR
