Running for Our Future

A photo-and-audio series from 14 women running for political office.

EPISODE 1: VANESSA ENOCH

“I became somebody who my family relied on.”

— Dr. Vanessa Enoch —

...as I became an adult, I realized that I had a responsibility to speak on behalf of people who couldn't speak for themselves."

—Dr. Vanessa Enoch, running for US Congress in the Eighth District of Ohio

All of my advocacy has been in Cincinnati over the years and so people still call me when there is need to have somebody come and fight on behalf of marginalized communities. So they asked me to come down and to fight for the homeless because they’re being told that homelessness is illegal in Cincinnati, now it’s illegal to be homeless, can you imagine? And so I showed up downtown.

In this picture, first of all, we have this black guy who has a beard and a mustache. He’s wearing a head wrap up. He’s got chains and various things around his neck and he’s talking to me.

His name is Bison. I called him a shirtless warrior and because of course he is not presently homeless, but he vowed to fight on behalf of those people down there who had no voices. He said that he, he was the fighter for the entire community of homeless people. He said they needed housing and mental health services and he began to talk about how these people, because they’ve been marginalized as homeless people, that society has forgotten about them and that society makes no place for them to even exist.

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Project Two