Barbara-Rose Collins (née Richardson; April 13, 1939 – November 4, 2021) was an American

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

from the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

and the first black woman from Michigan to be elected to Congress.

Life and career

Collins was born as Barbara-Rose Richardson in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, the daughter of Lou Versa (Jones) and Lamar Nathaniel Richardson, a Ford Motor Co. employee. She is an alumnus of

Cass Technical High School Cass Technical High School (simply referred to as Cass Tech) is a public high school in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, United States.

in Detroit, Michigan. She attended Cass Technical High School in 1957. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Anthropology from

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

. In 1960, Barbara-Rose Collins became divorced and a single mom. Barbara-Rose Collins worked multiple jobs and had public assistance until beginning a position as a Business Manager at

. She worked as a Business Manager for the Physics department at Wayne State University for 9 years. After hearing a speech by Black activist

Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the Unite ...

at Detroit's Shrine of the Black Madonna Church in the late 1960s, Barbara-Rose Collins became inspired by the speech to pursue a career in activism to uplift communities. Later, she was supported by the pastor of the Shrine Church to pursue a career in state legislature. She ran for a seat in 1974. During her early campaign days in 1974, Barbara-Rose Collins changed her name from Barbara Rose to Barbara-Rose making her first and middle name hyphenated. She did so to distinguish herself from other candidates. This change made her known as the congresswoman Barbara-Rose Collins from then on forward. Collins was a member of the Detroit Public School Board from 1971 to 1973, the

Michigan House of Representatives The Michigan House of Representatives is the lower house of the Michigan Legislature. There are 110 members, each of whom is elected from constituencies having approximately 77,000 to 91,000 residents, based on population figures from the 2010 ...

for the 21st district from 1975 to 1981, and the

Detroit City Council The Detroit City Council is the legislative body of Detroit, Michigan, United States. The full-time council is required to meet every business day for at least 10 months of the year, with at least eight of these meetings occurring at a location ...

from 1982 to 1991. During her time on the Detroit Public School Board, she earned recognition for her "school safety and academic achievement." In 1988, she lost a primary election to the incumbent

U.S. representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

for what was then

Michigan's 13th congressional district Michigan's 13th congressional district is a United States congressional district in Wayne County, Michigan. It is currently represented by Democrat Shri Thanedar. The district includes portions of Detroit and some of its suburbs, and it was t ...

George W. Crockett, Jr. George William Crockett Jr. (August 10, 1909 – September 7, 1997) was an African-American attorney, jurist, and congressman from the U.S. state of Michigan. He also served as a national vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild and co- ...

When he retired, she won the seat, taking 34 percent of the vote in a crowded eight-way Democratic primary. This was

tantamount to election A safe seat is an electoral district (constituency) in a legislative body (e.g. Congress, Parliament, City Council) which is regarded as fully secure, for either a certain political party, or the incumbent representative personally or a combinati ...

in this heavily Democratic, black-majority district. She won handily in November and was reelected three more times, each time garnering over 80 percent of the vote. Her district was renumbered as the 15th district after the 1990 census. Collins was a sponsor of several bills that passed into law, including the Food Dating Bill, the Sex Education Bill, and the Pregnancy Insurance Bill. She also introduced the Unrenumerated Work Act in 1991, 1993, and 1994. This bill would have required the

Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of t ...

to set value on unwaged work such as housework, care work, agricultural work, volunteer work, and work in a family business, and include that value in the

Gross National Product The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country, consisting of gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes earned by foreign ...

of the United States. This measure had been called for in the Forward Looking Strategies resolution passed at the

World Conference on Women, 1985 The World Conference on Women, 1985 or the Third World Conference on Women took place between 15 and 26 July 1985 in Nairobi, Kenya, as the end-of-decade assessment of progress and failure in implementing the goals established by the World Plan of ...

. Collins's bill was endorsed by the

Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues The Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues is a bipartisan membership organization within the House of Representatives committed to advancing women's interests in Congress. It was founded by fifteen Congresswomen on April 19, 1977, and was origin ...

and by 1993 had 90 co-sponsors; however, it failed to pass. Collins was the subject of a

United States House Committee on Ethics The Committee on Ethics, often known simply as the Ethics Committee, is one of the committees of the United States House of Representatives. Prior to the 112th Congress it was known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The House ...

inquiry in 1995, under suspicion of 11 instances of misuse of funds. In 1996, after she lost the Democratic primary for re-election to

Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick Carolyn Jean Cheeks Kilpatrick (born June 25, 1945) is a former American politician who was U.S. Representative for from 1997 to 2011. She is a member of the Democratic Party. In August 2010 she lost the Democratic primary election to Hansen Cl ...

, the inquiry was dropped. After five years out of politics, Collins returned to the Detroit City Council in 2001. She was re-elected in 2005 and retired in 2009.

Juneteenth

Barbara-Rose Collins can be credited with proposing a bill to make

Juneteenth Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Deriving its name from combining "June" and "nineteenth", it is celebrated on the anniversary of General Order No. 3, i ...

a federal holiday back in 1996. According to the ACLU of Michigan, "Michigan's own Congresswoman Barbara Rose Collins introduced a bill in 1996 that petitioned the U.S. government to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. In her congressional remarks, she stated, "the dehumanizing and degrading conditions of slavery were unnecessarily prolonged for hundreds of thousands of black men, women, and children, because our American government failed to communicate the truth" (2017). Because of Barbara-Rose Collins and her efforts back in 1996, Juneteenth is now a

federal holiday Federal holidays in the United States are the eleven calendar dates that are designated by the U.S. government as holidays. On U.S. federal holidays, non-essential federal government offices are closed and federal government employees are paid ...

since 2021.

Death

Collins died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

at a

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

hospital on November 4, 2021, at age 82, during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan The first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. state of Michigan were discovered on March 10, 2020, one day before the outbreak of the disease was officially declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. As of December 20, 2022 ...

. According to her son, she had been vaccinated with the

Janssen COVID-19 vaccine The Janssen COVID19 vaccine, sold under the brand name Jcovden, is a COVID19 vaccine that was developed by Janssen Vaccines in Leiden, Netherlands, and its Belgian parent company Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of American company Joh ...

. According to one of her grandsons, Collins had health issues that contributed to her COVID-19 death despite her vaccination status.

Personal life

Collins was the aunt of actor and comedian Sam Richardson.

References

External links