Collins, Barbara-Rose, 1939-2021

<p>A longtime community activist and single mother, Barbara-Rose Collins was elected to Congress in 1990 on a platform to bring federal dollars and social aid to her economically depressed neighborhood in downtown Detroit. In the House, Collins focused on her lifelong advocacy for minority rights and on ensuring that Black families and Black communities had the resources and opportunities they needed to thrive.</p>

<p>The eldest of four children of Lamar Nathaniel and Lou Versa Jones Richardson, Barbara Rose Richardson was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 13, 1939. Her father worked as an auto manufacturer and later as an independent contractor in home improvement. Barbara Richardson graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1957 and attended Detroit’s Wayne State University majoring in political science and anthropology. Richardson left college to marry her classmate, Virgil Gary Collins, who later worked as a pharmaceutical salesman; they had two children: Cynthia and Christopher. In 1960 the couple divorced, and, as a single mother, Barbara Collins had to work multiple jobs. She received public financial assistance until the physics department at Wayne State University hired her as a business manager, a position she held for nine years. Collins subsequently became an assistant in the office of equal opportunity and neighborhood relations at Wayne State. In the late 1960s, Collins heard a speech by Black activist Stokely Carmichael at Detroit’s Shrine of the Black Madonna Church. Inspired by Carmichael’s Black Power philosophy and community activism, Collins purchased a house within a block of her childhood home and joined the Shrine Church, whose agenda focused on uplifting Black neighborhoods. In 1971 Collins was elected to Detroit’s region one school board, earning widespread recognition for her work on school safety and academic achievement. Encouraged by the Shrine Church pastor, Collins campaigned for a seat in the state legislature in 1974, hyphenating her name, Barbara-Rose, to distinguish herself from the other candidates. Victorious, she embarked on a six-year career in the state house. Collins chaired the constitutional revision and women’s rights committee, which produced Women in the Legislative Process, the first published report to document the status of women in the Michigan state legislature.</p>

<p>Bolstered by her work in Detroit’s most underserved neighborhoods, Collins considered running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980 against embattled downtown Representative Charles Coles Diggs Jr.; however, Collins’s mentor Detroit Mayor Coleman Young advised her to run for Detroit city council instead, and she did successfully. Eight years later in the Democratic primary, she challenged incumbent U.S. Representative George William Crockett Jr., who had succeeded Diggs. In a hard-fought campaign, Collins held the respected, but aging, Crockett to a narrow victory with less than 49 percent of the vote. Crockett chose not to run for re-election in 1990, leaving the seat wide open for Barbara-Rose Collins. Collins’s 1990 campaign focused on bringing federal money to Detroit, an economically depressed and segregated city. Her district’s rapidly rising crime rate (one of the highest in the nation) also affected the candidate. In 1989 Collins’s son was convicted of armed robbery, and she concluded that he got into legal trouble because he lacked a strong male role model. “I could teach a girl how to be a woman, but I could not teach a boy how to be a man,” she later told the Detroit Free Press. Drawing from this experience, Collins promised to pursue legislation to support Black families, rallying under the banner “Save the Black Male.” In a crowded field of eight candidates, Collins won her primary with 34 percent of the vote, a victory that amounted to election to Congress in the overwhelmingly Democratic district. Collins sailed through the general election with 80 percent of the vote and was re-elected twice with even higher percentages.</p>

<p>Barbara-Rose Collins (April 13, 1939 – November 4, 2021) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Michigan and the first black woman from Michigan to be elected to Congress.</p>

<p>Collins was born in Detroit, Michigan, graduated from the public schools there and attended Wayne State University as an Anthropology Major. She was a member of the Detroit Region I public school board, 1971–1973; a member of the Michigan State House of Representatives, from the 21st District, 1975–1981; and a member of the Detroit City Council, 1982–1991.</p>

<p>In 1988, she lost a primary election to the incumbent U.S. Representative for what was then Michigan's 13th congressional district, George W. Crockett, Jr. 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 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.</p>

<p>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 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 of the US. This measure had been called for in the Forward Looking Strategies resolution passed at the UN 3rd World Conference on Women Nairobi in 1985. Collins's bill was endorsed by the Congressional Women's Caucus and by 1993 had 90 co-sponsors; however, it failed to pass.</p>

<p>Collins was the subject of a Congressional Ethics Committee 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, the inquiry was dropped. After five years out of politics, Collins returned to the Detroit City Council in 2001, was reelected in 2005, and retired in 2009.</p>

<p>Collins died of COVID-19 on November 4, 2021, at a hospital in Detroit during the COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan. She was 82.</p>

COLLINS, Barbara-Rose, a Representative from Michigan; born in Detroit, Mich., April 13, 1939; graduated from public schools and attended Wayne State University; member, Detroit Region I public school board, 1971-1973; member, Michigan house of representatives, 1975-1981; member, Detroit city council, 1982-1991, 2002-present; unsuccessful candidate for nomination to the One Hundred First Congress in 1988; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Second and to the two succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1991-January 3, 1997); was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination to the One Hundred Fifth Congress; died on November 4, 2021, in Detroit, Mich.