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.
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.1
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.2
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.3
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.4
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.5
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.6
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.7
One of three Black women in her freshman class, Collins
sought the influence and counsel of longtime Michigan
Representative John David Dingell Jr., who helped her gain
a seat on the Public Works and Transportation Committee
(later Transportation and Infrastructure).8
She also received
assignments to the Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology and the Select Committee on Children,
Youth, and Families. She later traded these two panels for
Government Operations (later named Government Reform
and Oversight) and the Post Office and Civil Service
Committee, where she chaired the Subcommittee on Postal
Operations and Services in the 103rd Congress (1993–1995). A member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the
Congressional Women’s Caucus, Representative Collins was
appointed a Majority Whip At-Large from 1993 until 1994.
Collins’s career was focused on her campaign promises
to direct federal resources and programs to improve
opportunities in underserved Black communities. In
October 1992 Collins began encouraging agricultural
growers to donate excess food that would otherwise go to
waste to urban food banks and shelters.9
Collins generally
supported President William J. (Bill) Clinton’s economic
and job stimulus initiatives; however, she vocally opposed
the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing
that opening American borders to cheaper Mexican
products would take domestic manufacturing jobs away
from unionized factory workers, including many in her
district.10 Though she favored the bill’s final version, she
voted against the President’s April 1994 omnibus crime
bill, objecting to its extension of the death penalty to
several more federal crimes and opposing a section that
mandated life in prison for people convicted of three
felonies. Collins argued that these provisions would affect
minority communities disproportionately, declaring, “I
think justice is dispensed differently for people of color,
be they black or Hispanic.”11 Collins’s family advocacy was
apparent in her enthusiastic support of the October 1995
Million Man March, a mass rally of African-American men
in Washington, DC, to draw attention to social, economic,
and political challenges faced by the Black community.
Collins planned to provide water for the marchers. “The
idea is electrifying,” she said about the march’s emphasis
on family and community. “Black men will be reaffirming
their responsibility for black women and for the black
family.”12 Collins also called on federal officials to include
housework, childcare, volunteer work, and time devoted
to a family business as components of the gross national
product. “If you raise the status of women,” she declared,
“we would be more conscious of the family unit.”13
With her focus on domestic issues, Representative
Collins generally opposed increasing foreign aid. “Our cities
are hurting,” she observed. “We must learn how to take care
of America first.”14 In April 1994, Collins and five other
Democratic House Members were arrested after staging a
sit-in at the White House to protest American policy toward
Haiti. In the wake of the island nation’s military coup, the
protestors called for greater acceptance of Haitian refugees
and demanded a stronger embargo against Haiti.15 “What’s
being done to Haitians is inhumane and immoral,” Collins
said. “The fact of the matter is we welcome Hungarians
with open arms, we welcome Vietnamese with open arms,
we welcome Cubans with open arms, but when it comes
to black Haitians, we tell them, ‘Stand back we don’t want
you,’ the result being that hundreds are drowned at sea,
children and women eaten by sharks.”16 All six Members
were fined and released.
While Collins was popular among her constituents, she
drew negative publicity when the Justice Department and
the House Ethics Committee investigated her office in
1996 for the alleged misuse of campaign and scholarship
funds.17 Though Collins was initially unopposed in the
1994 primary, six opponents entered the race following the
controversy. Challenger Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick defeated
the incumbent in the primary by a 21-point margin and
went on to win the general election. Barbara-Rose Collins
remained active in local politics. In 2001 she won a seat on
the Detroit city council. Collins was re-elected in 2005 to
the council for a second term and retired in 2009. Barbara-Rose Collins died on November 4, 2021, in Detroit.18
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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