Higher Heights for America PAC was proud to endorse Patricia Timmons-Goodson to represent North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District. Although Pat lost in the November 2020 general election, she ran a competitive race, garnering 46.7 percent of the votes.
Pat is a trailblazer and has been a mentor and an example for other women who are making their own paths. At the age of 29, Pat became the first African American woman named in the 12th Judicial District of North Carolina. She was elected to three consecutive terms and was elevated to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 1997. In 2006, she become the first African American woman on the Supreme Court of North Carolina. In 2016, President Obama nominated Pat to serve as a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The American Bar Association unanimously gave her its highest rating, but the Senate never acted on her nomination.
Pat currently serves on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, a fact-finding agency tasked with informing the president and Congress about civil rights and related laws. Some of the agency’s recent work includes: voting rights in North Carolina, women in prison, the treatment of immigrants and conditions in related detention centers, and hate crimes.
Pat was raised on military bases in the United States and Europe. Her father was a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, and her mother was a school secretary and educator. She was among the first African American students to become a double Tar Heel. She received a B.A. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Juris Doctor from University of North Carolina School of Law and a Master of Laws degree from Duke University Law School. Pat was inducted into the North Carolina Women’s Hall of Fame in 2010.
During her campaign, Pat pledged to advocate for criminal justice reform, equal pay for equal work, increasing the federal minimum wage, adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act, affordable housing, robust federal investment in public education, and making the Roe v. Wade decision the law of the land rather than purely a court decision.
History shows that when Black women gain political power, we champion policies that benefit multiple communities. The time is now to elect more Black women to be at decision-making tables to represent us.