A native of St. Louis, Cori Bush is a single parent, a prior candidate for Congress, a registered nurse and ordained pastor, and an activist and community organizer. As co-director of The Truth Telling Project, Cori travels the country to highlight the voices and stories of the voiceless. She is also an international presenter on nonviolent conflict and has worked as a Nonviolence 365 Ambassador with the King Center. Due to her activism, Cori was honored in 2015 with the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation’s “Woman of Courage” Award and in 2016 as Delux Magazine’s “Power 100” Award recipient. In 2017, Gazelle Magazine named her one of the “Top 50 Women of St. Louis,” and the St. Louis Coalition for Human Rights called her an “Unsung Human Rights Shero.” This past year, she received the “Community Activist” award from the Missouri Association of Black Ministers. Cori first emerged as a community leader through her work as a protester, as clergy, as a medic, and as a victim of police assault. Her activism extends to areas of mental health and sexual assault with her efforts to co-found an emergency shelter. Seeing first-hand the need for proper representation and better legislation for all, Cori ran a groundbreaking campaign for the US Senate in Missouri in 2016, mobilizing thousands and inspiring many to run for elected office themselves. In 2017, she was elected the first vice-chairperson.

Cori is running to bring everyday people into the focus of DC policy and because she is the people that she serves. She is running because this is a time in history where complacency cannot be the standard while Americans are having to decide between medication and rent, while the justice system over-incarcerates and the education system under-educates, and while millions of children live in poverty and thousands live in cages. She is running because our district deserves a purpose-driven leader with a proven track record of fighting for the people, even as it threatened her own life. She is running because she has seen that change can happens across this nation when regular people stand up fearlessly against a system so unjust that it gives way to police brutality against black and brown bodies. Carol believes that more change can happen. This district deserves a change agent. 18 years is long enough to wait and watch the population decline, communities crumble, and economic growth stand still. Carol is running because she is not beholden to any corporations and will be accountable to the people alone.

Cori cannot and will not sit quiet while injustice remains unchecked. She will fight to end mass incarceration, subsidies for private prisons, and the cash bail system. She will push for environmental justice and the decriminalization of substance use. She will also fight to demilitarize the police force and provide more resources for education and recidivism programs. Cori will work to provide a true pathway for positive re-entry into society so that offenders can become actively engaged, contributing members of their communities. She will also work to increase support services for youth to help them succeed, including healthy school and summer breakfast and lunch programs and policies that promote restorative instead of punitive approaches to school discipline. Cori supports free college tuition for community colleges and state universities because she believes that students should be rewarded for their hard work and not burdened with student loan debt. She will work tirelessly both to make sure that higher education is within reach for all students and to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. Cori is committed to expanding job training programs connecting talent to opportunity. She will fight for workers’ rights to unionize and earn a living wage, and for the rights of all people to healthcare and affordable housing.