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Melissa Harris-Perry: Throughout March, for women's history month, The Takeaway is joining with the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, to bring you the stories of women leading locally. For this installment, we're heading out to the Midwest.

Emilia Sykes: Hi, bringing you greetings from the birthplace of champions, Ohio's House 34th district, this is Emilia Sykes, state representative.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That's probably one of my favorite greetings ever from a guest. I had to ask her just who are these champions of district 34 in Ohio.

Emilia Sykes: First, you may know a guy named LeBron James. [crosstalk]

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yes, I remember him.

Emilia Sykes: Steph Curry, you may know Larry Nance, but there's also a lot of people whose names you'll never know, but they're champions for women, for education, for the environment and I like to pay homage to all of them, so we are the birthplace of champions.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I asked state representative Sykes about the effort she's spearheading to make sure other Black women running for office are successful.

Emilia Sykes: It's one of my favorite topics, so so glad to answer that question. I'm going to take you back to 2015 when I was first sworn in as a member of the Ohio House, very excited to represent my hometown, was a very engaged legislator. I had a ton of committees and I was busy, but it was great work. The one challenge I would have all of the time was literally getting into the State House.

When I say that, it was a situation where regularly where I was walking in, I would be stopped, I'd be questioned, I'd be searched because the security didn't understand why I was there and this happened for months and it just went on and on and on and eventually it came to the point where I had a back and forth with one of the security guards there. They said to me after I asked them, "Why do you guys keep stopping me, and what is going on?" He said, "You don't look like a legislator."

It was a shocking statement because, one, I had a badge, I had a lapel pin, all of the accouterments that you bring to your job, of course, and also tens of thousands of votes to get me there but just physically not being even let into the building where I was supposed to work because I "didn't look like a legislator." As I thought through that and discussed that with myself, I recognized he was kind of right because we have pictures of governors and speakers and Senate presidents and other legislators and I was the, at the time, and still, the youngest Black woman legislator ever to be elected, and so there wasn't anyone who looked like me, and I did not look like a legislator at least based on the photos in the building.

It pushed us to this movement called We Belong Here, where we talked about how Black women and women of color belong in spaces and places where we were not traditionally and we shouldn't be challenged for just wanting to serve the public and working with a good colleague, Leslie Herod from Colorado, she had this idea and said, "Hey, I know you've been organizing women. I've got this great idea, let's provide some resources and support for other Black women who want to be in office. Who not only want to be in the offices that they are in, they maybe want to expand their service," and we connected with Emerge and now we have a cohort of six women legislators who are phenomenal in their own right, who are looking to expand their service and we're trying to give them the tools that they need to be successful in those roles.

Melissa Harris-Perry: On the one hand, I love knowing what you're doing with, on the other, it took me even a minute to process when you were saying the problem of getting into the State House, and I realized you meant literally physically into the building.

Emilia Sykes: Physically into the building. Yes.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Thank you for continuing to fight the good fight, because the fact is these houses are our houses, the houses of women and women of color, as much as they are anyone else's right. We've contributed to building the nation, we continue to contribute to the nation, and so we got to contribute in governing it.

Emilia Sykes: Yes, and it was one of the more shocking parts of the story. I hear people say that all the time. That it is absurd and unbelievable that something like that would happen. It happened so many times that I would like to believe that it was not true, but it, again, reminds me and reminds other people of how Black women particularly are left out of decision making and then when you think about why we are suffering and have challenges with accessing opportunity, it all makes sense.

I often think about Shirley Chisholm when she told us if they don't allow you a seat at the table, bring your own folding chair. Where they've made it so that you can't even get into the building so let alone a table, you can't get a table, can't get in the building and so there's always-- [crosstalk]

Melissa Harris-Perry: You're going to have a hard time getting into the building carrying a folding chair.

Emilia Sykes: Exactly, exactly. You have all of these barriers and we just want to be a part of the conversation to say, "Let me explain to you what it is like for people in my community, for women like me, for people of color, for folks who don't have this access." Then when we start understanding why our government doesn't feel like it works for us, it's because it's not working for all of us because we're not all a part of the decisions being made and being purposely and systemically left out.

The work that I have undertaken has been to help women, especially, build up our own confidence and we have it, we already have it, so I don't want to take away from us, but we are going to continue to get those hits. They're going to let us know, in so many ways, how they don't want us to be in the room and we have to support one another and say, we can do this.

One of the things about the groups seated together, which is so great is we can continue to have conversations and say, "Oh yes, I know, I've been through that before. Let me tell you how I work through it," or just validating an experience so people don't feel like you're making it up because even with my situation of not getting physically into the building, people would say, "Well, maybe your bags are too big or maybe it's just this," and it's like, "No, there's no reason for this."

Don't minimize this experience because now I'm all stressed out, I'm getting into the building, I'm late and I'm supposed to be prepared for a finance committee meeting. I'm 5, 10 minutes late and I missed the first part and I can't be a good representative all because someone decided I didn't deserve to be there because of what I look like.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As you talk about creating these circles of support of validation, you are someone who has an initial circle of support and validation in that you have politics in your family. I'm wondering if part of your interest, again, in expanding that circle has to do with the fact that for you, you have parents who know a little bit about this office holding situation.

Emilia Sykes: Absolutely and without a doubt, and it has been an incredible support that I know most people do not have, and I'm so thankful and grateful for it. I often joke about my mother who was the first Black woman to serve on Akron City Council at large. When she was in that position, she was pregnant with me and so I'd say, most parents would want to expose their kids to classical music in utero so they could be smart, and I was exposed to City Council meetings, and I was exposed to listen to my mother go toe to toe with men who told her all the time what she wasn't going to do and she said, "Oh no, let me tell you better." I don't know how to do anything better, but to stand up for myself on behalf of other people.

I learned that very early and it is a lesson and a blessing, not only for me in my professional and personal development, but it helps me be a better advocate for the people who I serve. I'm so thankful to be able to call my mom and say, "This happened to me, what do you think about it?" The best part is she can give me great advice. The worst part is, it's still happening to me, things that happened to her 10, 15, 20 years ago.

I even think about her experience with childcare with me and now we're still fighting for childcare issues 36 years later and the things that women have to go through just to be participants in our government to serve the public, to work and be a part of the economy, but it lets me know that there is a path forward, that there's a foundation and I don't have to do it alone, and so I am so grateful for both of my parents, especially my mother, for the legacy that she's given me and the fact that she gave me her maiden name as my middle name, which is strong. There's nothing cooler than being able to tell people my middle name is Strong and it is actually on my birth certificate.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: I appreciate that. Talk to me about one other first, one other intersection where you live, which is that you were the first Black woman under 30 to serve there in the Ohio State House. I'm wondering how being young also affected both how you saw, how you work, and how your work was seen?

Emilia Sykes: Oh, what a great question. I saw my work as bringing the voices of Millennials to the State House. I recall there was a finance committee hearing and we were talking about a driver's license issue and there was an individual who talked about, they had to get a driver's license and they had to retake their written driving exam. Everyone on the committee basically said, "I don't even understand what this means, I don't know what you're talking about." It was a place for me to say, "Oh, I have had to do this before. I moved out of State, I moved back in, had to get a new driver's license," and everyone was shocked.

When you think about the different collective experiences that Millennials have, and the varying challenges that we're dealing with, that you're highly educated, but we're in a lot of debt. We're delaying marriage and childbirth and homeownership for the reasons of student debt and an economy that has just not been working for us, it's very important to have someone in the room reminding folks that college tuition can't just be paid for with a part-time job. If we want people to have upward economic mobility, we've got to be thoughtful of where people are. I know Millennials get a bad rap for a lot of things but there are some systemic structural things that boomers dealt with that we don't have to or vice versa that we've got to be willing to address so that when it's time for us to take over and the baton is passed to us, we are not saddled in debt, that we have the stability and the foundation to continue to move this country forward.

It's been good in that sense but also when I walk into a room, people look at me and again try to figure out what am I doing there? There are so many times where I've taken meetings and people have said, "We're not going to take this meeting, we're waiting for the representative to come in," and so I think, "Okay, well, you want me to appropriate or sign off on a million-dollar capital budget improvement but you haven't even done the research to figure out who is the person you're meeting with."

It lets me know that people just aren't used to seeing young folks, and when you add in the intersections of being a woman as well as being Black I am a shock for a lot of people for sure, but they then learn very quickly that the dedication, the experience, the passion that I bring to this perspective, into this job is unmatched, and then they get over it very quickly.

Again, I hope that my presence which is often a sense of resistance and also persistence of what you have to do to be in spaces that were not designed for you to be in lets people know that we need to open up the space and bring more people in and the more diverse different voices we have the better off we'll be.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about how redistricting is affecting you.

Emilia Sykes: Redistricting has been interesting because we've, in Ohio, been fortunate to get a lot of people in the public engaged in gerrymandering and what it means in a way we have never seen. In 2015 and 2018, there are two constitutional amendments placed on the ballot to completely revamp the way in which we draw district lines. Voters were sick of politicians picking their voters, they should be picking us and so they said, "We want a change."

Now we're going through that process. I served on the Ohio Redistricting Commission. I was also the Ohio House Minority Leader for three years and served our caucus. One of my roles was as the member for the Redistricting Commission, and, again, it's just one of those moments that I would sit and just take in the experience and think, "This is a very, very big deal."

I was the only woman on that panel, and I had to bring with me all of the women who were not a part of that Redistricting Commission, whose reproductive rights, their access to abortion, their childcare issues, their ability to get a job, their protection and safety are not being addressed appropriately because the people who are making decisions are not them.

I was one of seven and as the only woman, I took the job so seriously because if we did not have and we don't have a legislature that is reflective of our state and our policies are extreme and one-sided, and so we are fortunate to have so many voices, especially of women who have come into those committee hearings and just said, "We do not like this, and we're going to push back, and we're going to file a lawsuit, and we're going to keep letting you know that we are unhappy," because ultimately what they're unhappy with it's not just that men can't do this job. They can do the job perfectly fine, but when you have people in these positions who refuse to listen to their constituents because they don't have to and that's what gerrymandering gets us, we have a state that has extreme policies that no one can get behind.

When you have a small minority of people making very important decisions on behalf of 11.5 million people, more than 11.5 million people, we are in for a wild ride and one that does not have economic prosperity or the ability for people to thrive, and there are no opportunities for opportunity in the state, and we're trying to turn that all around.

We're still in the middle of the redistricting process. I am now a candidate for Congress so it is a little frustrating because people keep asking me, "Where are you running?" I said, "Well, we're still trying to finalize that," but we'll see it to the end but ultimately what we want is fairness for our communities and adequate representation.

Melissa Harris-Perry: When I say women leading locally, what does that mean to you?

Emilia Sykes: That is such an awesome phrase because women leading locally means that women are leading in the way that touches the most people and is the most impactful. We all know that old political adage that all politics is local. It doesn't take much for us to think about those women in our past or in our presence who were the storytellers, who were the conveners, who were the organizers. I think about my hometown, the City of Akron, where Sojourner Truth gave this speech Ain't I A Woman? I take that with me every day that knowing in my hometown we started talking about, probably for one of the first times in recorded history, the intersection of being Black and a woman and making sure that every single thing I do reminds me of the intersections between any marginalized group.

Women leading locally is the basis, the foundation for equality, for fairness, for opportunity, and I'm just so excited to be a part of this growing group of women who are using our collective strength and building fires all across the country so that we can ignite this flame which is our passion, which is service but it is also goodness, fairness, and all of the American ideals that we hold so dearly.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Emilia Strong Sykes. Thank you for joining The Takeaway.

Emilia Sykes: Thank you for having me. This was a lovely conversation.

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