Pennsylvania's first elected Black congresswoman vows not to be the last

Congresswoman-elect Summer Lee made history on Election Day by becoming the first Black woman elected to the House from Pennsylvania. The progressive Democrat joined "GMA3" Friday and spoke with T.J. Holmes about the barriers broken with her historic win and the responsibility of this moment.

Lee is determined not to be the last Black woman from Pennsylvania in Congress and said that "everything that I do is to leave this place better than when I got here."

GMA3: Welcome back to "GMA3" everybody. Since 1789, Pennsylvania has sent 1,041 representatives to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. Up until now, not a single one of that 1,041 has been a Black woman. That, yes, is about to change because State Representative Summer Lee won Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District and is now poised to become the commonwealth's first Black woman in Congress. And she is joining us here now.

Congresswoman-elect Summer Lee, it is good to have you here with us. And I want to thank you for being here now, because that was a lot of work campaigning. It was a lot of work to get to Election Day. But there's been a lot of work this week. Tell everybody what you've been doing.

SUMMER LEE: Yes. Oh, my goodness. T.J., thank you so much for having me. Good afternoon. It has definitely been a long week. It was a really long campaign. And then right after, you know, right off we came out for campaigning. We came straight to D.C. for our first week of our two week-long orientation.

So we've been getting, learning the ropes. We've been figuring out our way through these buildings and how to get to the Capitol in general. So it's been a lot.

GMA3: I know. I know you've heard a lot. We've all heard about orientation over the years. I'm sure you heard about it from colleagues and press clippings and all kinds of stuff over the years. But still, now that you're there, what this week has still been such a challenge in trying to figure out and learning.

And sometimes we hear that's just finding the bathroom.

LEE: No, that's exactly right. It's obviously with the elections and just trying to figure out, you know, who's going to be in the majority, which we didn't really know until yesterday. So take that. And also trying to get our bearings. It's been a whirlwind, but I mean, incredibly exciting and still pinching myself, obviously.

GMA3: I know you're pinching yourself there. And some of us, we're kind of pinching ourselves and scratching our heads like, wait a minute, that a Black woman has never served for Pennsylvania, never, ever in Congress. Help us understand why.

LEE: You know, it's it's it's pretty remarkable. You know, I'm the first Black woman from western Pennsylvania to serve in a state house, also from Congress. We still haven't had a woman senator [from] Pennsylvania, right. We saw many barriers. Some of them are money.

Some of them are networks and old ideas of who should serve and who is qualified. Excuse me. But all of those things really kind of collude to keep Black women out.

GMA3: All right. So that number I mentioned off the top of 1,041 people who have served in Congress or Pennsylvania, not a single one has been a Black woman. Why is that?

LEE: You know, there are so many barriers to, you know, Black women, to otherwise marginalized people and poor and working-class people to get into politics. You know, people truly underestimate just how much it cost to run the amount of money that comes into politics. It's such an incredible barrier, right? That's one thing. Then there's old notions of who should serve, who's qualified or equipped to serve.

You know, gerrymandering is one thing, right? We live in districts where sometimes, you know, Black communities are cut apart. So being able to get someone to rise up and win in these races is always a feat. But even still. Right, we're still trying to kind of knock down those glass ceilings, but all of those things kind of combined.

We have systemic racism and money and just traditional ideas of who is viable.

GMA3: And Congresswoman-elect, I know you want to do a good job. I mean, you put pressure on yourself probably just to be there, perform for your, for your district. But now that you have made this history, now that you are a first and even if you don't feel that additional pressure coming from outside, do you feel it yourself and do you put it on yourself as the first Black woman?

LEE: Absolutely. I mean, I don't underestimate just how much of a responsibility this is. You know, when you first walk into the Capitol, when you think of all of the people who have walked through there before, and then I think of all the people who weren't able to walk through. I think of them. I think about all the people who were brilliant and qualified and didn't make it to the next level or weren't able to get there.

I think about all the Black women throughout Pennsylvania who have never had representation. So I keep that. It's such a responsibility. I have such a diverse district and we all just want to do well.

We are coming here to do the work of the people, but there is always an added responsibility to say, I want to make sure that even though I'm the first, I'm not the last, and that everything that I do is to leave this place better than when I got here.

GMA3: And what does that mean for you initially? What have you watched from afar as an observer of Congress that you thought, 'Man, if I could get in there, I would like to have this type of influence.' I would like to do what some of that has to do with policy.

Some of that just has to do with demeanor and tone and how we treat each other. What is one of the first things you are itching to get in there?

LEE: And do you know, I'm an organizer at heart and I recognize that we have to have and we have to build power on the inside of the House that we hear it a lot, right. But I watch as kind of a new cohort of Black and brown folks, young progressives have been able to get into office, but we're navigating spaces that aren't used to us being here.

So when I think about how I would like to navigate or what I would like to see differently, I would like to see when we think about even how we're building bridges, how we're making connections between people who think that they're not similar, people who think that maybe because, you know, one of us calls ourselves a moderate or one of us calls ourselves a progressive, that we don't have commonalities.

I think that that's a huge task to do that, to really just help people to understand that we're coming with people, that we're bringing our our constituents with us, that we're bringing new stakeholders to the table, that we're diversifying who we go to when we're creating laws or we're creating policy, who do we go to for expertise? That's what I've tried to do in the state house. I think that's what we have to do in Congress because, you know, it's not good enough to just have Black women, to have Black and brown folks, to have progressives.

We also have to say that we need to do things a little bit differently and we need to bring different people to the table who haven't had access to it.

GMA3: And we talk about you as being a woman making history, another history-making woman. Speaker Pelosi announced that she is going to be stepping down from that leadership role. Look, a lot of people looked at that. And no matter what your politics are, you can still acknowledge that. She, of course, was a groundbreaking woman there in Congress. But now it appears that the front-runner or someone being talked about now could be a groundbreaking congressman, Hakeem Jeffries, who is being talked about as possibly the one to replace her.

Have you taken a look at this yet? I know you just do an orientation, but do you feel pretty good about him? Possibly now. The first Black man being in that top. Leadership role and possibly in Congress of the Democrats.

LEE: You know, getting obviously, like I said, we're still getting so many firsts, which is astounding. Yesterday was a whirlwind, right? Speaker Pelosi steps down. It was an incredible and a really in a huge moment. And even as freshmen, we're still trying to figure out who else is running. So I haven't heard of anyone else is running. But I do think about all the people who are going to now see themselves represented in leadership.

My dream is that whoever takes leadership, you know, really sets forth a progressive vision for what we want this party to be, what we want our country to be.

You know, we have two years to get back the majority. That's two years that our leadership team is going to have to make the case to the entire American population before a presidential race of what we are going to stand for. So he has a big task ahead of him.

GMA3: So, I appreciate that. You're like, 'T.J., they just happened yesterday. But I'm looking for a place to live in D.C. right now, and you asking me about vote on leadership?' So I know you got a lot going on, cause when you were congresswoman-elect, we've watched you from afar, and you take care of that cold and everything and get you some rest.

I know you got a lot going on, but we hope to see you down the road, OK?

LEE: I hope to see you, too. Thank you so much for having me.