#think progress

He had reason to be afraid. Young black men like Swink are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than white men, often because police use vague racial profiles that make every black man a potential threat.

It could have been worse if the officers had not gotten the radio call when they did. The now infamous police in nearby Ferguson, MO mistakenly arrested one man in 2009, beat him, and then charged him with destruction of property for getting his blood on their uniforms.

When Summer Lee moved back home to North Braddock after graduating from Howard University Law School in 2015, she was suddenly thrust into the same environment she had spent years studying and learning to change.

“I spent my time at law school looking at the cyclical nature of racism. And then just kind of really realizing how that cycle plays out in my own community,” Lee told ThinkProgress. Her homecoming was compounded with news of multiple incidents of police brutality at her alma mater Woodland Hills High School, in which staff and school resource officers punched, tased, and threatened students.

“Our issues at Woodland Hills School District was because of our elected officials, because they would not speak to us, because they didn’t respect us, because they didn’t prioritize the needs of this electorate, because they didn’t prioritize the needs of these children,” said Lee.

The lack of accountability and responsiveness on the part of politicians was ultimately what compelled Lee to run for state representative in 2017.

“I just really started to think, what would our government look like if we were picking our representatives and it wasn’t the system sending us a representative?” Lee said. “I actually just wanted to basically find more black people to run, women to run. And then there was like, ‘can I really lead people to a place that I’m not willing to go?’”

But neither Lee, nor Sara Innamorato, both of whom are running for the Pennsylvania State House on the Democratic Socialist platform, ever aspired to run for public office. And that is exactly what makes them so perfect for the position.

Both women were born and raised in the Pittsburgh area — Innamorato in Ross Township, Lee in North Braddock. And both women lived through experiences unique to their communities that ultimately informed their decision to pursue public office.

“I wasn’t supposed to run for office,” said Innamorato, whose working-class family was homeless for a brief period. “You look at where I’m from, my family background … You wouldn’t look at that and be like, ‘that’s a candidate for office.’”

Lee’s perspective is similar. “When I was a kid and they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, saying that I wanted to be a senator or a congressperson or a representative or a governor was never something that I would’ve even thought of,” she said. “Because they were never me.”

But that changed in May, when Innamorato, 32, and Lee, 30, won their respective primaries against two longtime incumbents, cousins Dom Costa and Paul Costa, delivering a massive blow to establishment Democrats in western Pennsylvania and paving the way for fresher, bolder, and more progressive leadership. Their victories are guaranteed in November, as both women are running unopposed.

Before long, Innamorato and Lee were joined by other Democratic Socialist women across the country — like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Michigan — who won their primaries with ease, against all odds. While pundits wrestled over what made Democratic Socialism so appealing to voters, it was clear that a movement had already begun.  

“I was my own worst enemy”

Innamorato and Lee got their start in politics in similar ways. While working in their communities — Innamorato in the nonprofit sector, Lee as an organizer — both women were frustrated with the glaring absence of their elected officials in the community.

“I saw how more and more we’re relying on these small, under-resourced organizations to solve some of the region’s biggest problems,” Innamorato told ThinkProgress. “And you’re like, ‘but where are the elected officials,’ cause these are people who could really be game-changers either through money or policy changing.”

The void in leadership led her to seek out women to run for public office. Pretty soon, people began asking her whether she would consider running.

“I was like, ‘uh, I’m more of a helper … I don’t have a public policy degree, I don’t have a law degree.’ I always said I don’t have these things and I rarely looked at what I did have to offer,” she said. “I’ve lived here my entire life, I’ve faced the struggles that most people in this district are facing.”