Background, & Ties to the Black Panther Party

Born as Barbara Jean Tutt in El Paso, Texas on July 16, 1946, Barbara Lee, in her youth, was a single, teenage mother who relied on food stamps. In 1968 she volunteered for the local Community Learning Center of the Black Panther Party, and then attended Mills College in Oakland, California from 1969-73. In 1973 Lee worked on the Oakland mayoral campaign of Panther co-founder Bobby Seale and served as a confidential aide to the organization’s “minister of defense,” Huey Newton. (Panther members at the time referred to Lee as “Comrade Barbara.”)  After Newton fled to Cuba in the mid-1970s to evade murder, assault, and tax-evasion charges, Lee she twice visited him there. Decades later, in her 2009 book Renegade for Peace & Justice, Lee fondly recalled her affiliation with the Panthers. “Despite his roughness, my mother really liked him,” Lee wrote of Newton. And regarding Seale, she wrote: “When I first met him, he impressed me as being very nice—a leader always willing to give positive feedback to me and the other ‘comrades’ in the party. I was known as ‘Comrade Barbara’ at the time. We were and remain close.”

On October 24, 2021, Lee attended an Oakland ceremony commemorating the 55th anniversary of Huey Newton’s creation of the Black Panther Party, a ceremony where a bust of Newton — a known rapist, drug dealer, cop-killer, and murderer — was formally unveiled and put on public display along with a plaque lauding his achievements. (Notably, Lee in recent years had repeatedly co-sponsored legislation to tear down existing statues of members of the Confederate Army located in the U.S. Capitol, on grounds that they were “symbols of bigotry and racism.”)

Affinity for Fidel Castro and Communist Cuba

After earning a master’s degree in social work from UC Berkeley in 1975, Lee served as a staffer for the openly socialist California congressman Ron Dellums. In 1977 Lee accompanied Dellums on a delegation to Cuba to discuss healthcare issues with Fidel Castro. While still working for Dellums, Lee in 1979 again traveled to Havana, this time to attend a conference of “non-aligned nations”—a Cold War euphemism for countries siding with the Soviet Union. Lee attended the event as a journalist for the alternative San Francisco newspaper, the Sun-Reporter, whose late editor, Carlton Goodlett, had received the Lenin Peace Prize in Moscow in April 1970.

All told, Lee has been to Cuba more than 20 times since the 1970s. For example:

• In December 1998, Lee led a five-day, eleven-member congressional delegation to Cuba.
• In February 1999, Lee and five fellow members of the CBC (including Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson Lee) again visited Cuba to evaluate the U.S.-imposed embargo.
• In April 2009, Lee was part of a delegation of seven CBC members (among whom was Bobby Rush) who traveled to Havana to meet with former Cuban president Fidel Castro and his successor, Raul Castro. After the meeting, Lee and her cohorts praised the Castros as warm and hospitable hosts, and called for an end to America’s longstanding ban on travel to Cuba.3 Lee described her meeting with Fidel Castro as “quite a moment to behold,” adding: “Fidel Castro was very engaging and very energetic.”^[1]

Lee once praised Fidel Castro for having “led a revolution in Cuba that led social improvements for his people.”

After Castro’s death in 2016, Lee said: “We need to stop and pause and mourn his loss.”

Supporting the Marxist Regime in Grenada, While Undermining the Reagan Foreign Policy

In 1980 Lee provided counterintelligence support to the Cuban-backed, Marxist-Leninist regime of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop in the Caribbean nation of Grenada, alerting the regime to the possible presence of an anti-communist spy in Bishop’s office.

In 1981 Lee asked the World Peace Council (WPC), which was a Soviet front, to purchase air tickets for Ron Dellums and two of his staffers, so they could attend a WPC conference in Europe. Lee once told The Progressive magazine that her life was influenced greatly by the late Carlton Goodlett, a dedicated Stalinist who served as a leader of WPC and used a newspaper that he owned to spread Soviet disinformation and promote KGB forgeries.

In 1982 Lee accompanied Dellums, who headed the House Sub-Committee on Military Installations and was the ranking Democrat member of the House Armed Services Committee, on a “fact-finding” tour of Grenada. Specifically, Dellums was tasked with gauging, for U.S. government leaders, whether an airport that was being constructed by Soviet bloc advisers in conjunction with Cuban military personnel might pose a military threat to the United States. At issue, in particular, was the fact that the airport was equipped with unusually long runways—long enough to accommodate the needs of Soviet military planes.

Following his inspection, Dellums wrote up a report dismissing the airport’s possible military utility. He then secretly sent the report, through Barbara Lee, to Maurice Bishop, so as to give the communist dictator an opportunity to revise it in whatever way he wished before either Congress or President Ronald Reagan saw it. The minutes of a 1982 Grenada Politburo meeting — attended by Bishop and his military command — state: “Barbara Lee is here presently and has brought with her a report on the international airport that was done by Ron Dellums. They have requested that we look at the document and suggest any changes we deem necessary. They will be willing to make the changes.”

In subsequent testimony to Congress, Dellums said: “It is my thought that it is absurd, patronizing and totally unwarranted for the United States Government to charge that this airport poses a military threat to the United States’ national security.”

Notwithstanding the claims of the Dellums report, in March 1983 President Reagan began to issue warnings about the threat posed to the United States by “Soviet-Cuban militarization” of the Caribbean. His suspicions were borne out when, during the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983, American troops seized documents indicating that the airfield was indeed intended for Soviet and Cuban military purposes.

“An Anti-American Communist”

Author and political commentator David Horowitz has called Barbara Lee “an anti-American communist who supports America’s enemies and has actively collaborated with them in their war against America.”

From 1983-85, Lee was an executive board member of the U.S. Peace Council, a Soviet front which was dominated by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).

Starting in the early 1990s, Lee served, along with her friend Angela Davis, on the national coordinating committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an organization that splintered from the CPUSA in 1991.

In 1997 Lee was one of a number of elected officials to attend a Bay Area banquet sponsored by People’s Weekly World (now known as People’s World), the official newspaper of the CPUSA. She has attended a number of additional PWW banquets over the years, sometimes as a special honoree. On other occasions, Lee has lent her support to the event and its various honorees.

In September 1999, Lee and Rep. Lynn Woolsey were among the co-sponsors of a CPUSA fundraising event in Berkeley.

Onetime Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Nancy Skinner served as a field manager for Lee’s 2002 congressional campaign. That same year, a report by CPUSA political-action-committee chairman Joelle Fishman to the Party’s national board, called on communists to support Lee in her re-election bid.

Member of Congress

When Ron Dellums retired from Congress in 1998, Lee won his vacated congressional seat (in California’s 9th District) and has held it ever since. She is a member of both the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC, which she chaired from 2009-11) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives.

Speaking at a “Radical Youth” Event

In April 1998, Lee was a guest speaker at a Berkeley, California event titled “Making Trouble: Building a Radical Youth Movement.” Other speakers included Angela Davis, Barbara Ehrenreich, Tom Hayden, Dolores Huerta, and Cornel West.

Calling for Review of U.S. Cuba Policy

In October 1998, Lee was one of seventeen members of Congress who sent a letter to Bill Clinton, asking the President to form a bi-partisan commission to review U.S.-Cuba policy.

The Lone Member of Congress to Oppose Military Force Against 9/11 Perpetrators

On September 14, 2001, Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against a resolution authorizing President Bush to use military force against anyone associated with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The resolution passed 98-0 in the Senate, and 420-1 in the House.

Department of Peace

In 2001-02, Lee supported Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s proposal to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace (DOP) in the executive branch of the federal government. Kucinich envisioned the DOP dealing with such disparate matters as weapons reduction, nuclear disarmament, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal rehabilitation, violence against animals, gun violence, gang and school violence, hate crimes, and the establishment of a “peace curriculum” in the schools.

Lawsuit to Block U.S. Withdrawal from Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

In June 2002, Lee joined thirty fellow members of Congress (including such notables as John Conyers, Jesse Jackson Jr., Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, and Maxine Waters) in filing a federal lawsuit to block President George W. Bush from withdrawing the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which had been signed in 1972 with the old Soviet Union.

Ties to Radical Leftist Organizations

In 2003, Lee served on the advisory committee of the Progressive Majority.

On July 29, 2004, Lee was a guest speaker at a Massachusetts event moderated by Tim Carpenter, national director of Progressive Democrats for America. Titled “Beyond Boston: Building the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party,” this conference also featured such prominent speakers as Tom Andrews, Medea Benjamin, John Conyers, Howard Dean, Tom Hayden, Dennis Kucinich, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr., and James Zogby.

Lee was a guest speaker at the 2006 and 2007 “Take Back America” conferences organized by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF). In June 2010, she spoke at the same IPS-CAF conference, which by then had been renamed “America’s Future Now.” In 2011 Lee spoke at a “Take Back the American Dream” conference, again hosted  hosted IPS and CAF.

On July 28, 2010, Lee was a guest speaker — along with such notables as Elijah Cummings and Van Jones — at a Youth Leadership Speaker Series event organized by the 21st Century Democrats. The event was sponsored by Representative John Lewis and Senator Tom Harkin.

In November 2010, Lee and 15 other congressional Democrats met—either personally or through their respective staffers—with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack, a Marxist-Leninist group condemning the “FBI raids and grand jury subpoenas” of people who were doing “international solidarity work” and “anti-war” organizing.

In 2012, Lee served on the host committee for “Leading with Love,” an event celebrating the five-year anniversary of the Marxist-led National Domestic Workers Alliance.

Lee has been a member of the League of Women Voters, and an advisory board member with Progressive Democrats of America.

Lee’s political campaigns have been supported by such organizations as the Council for a Livable World, EMILY’s List, J Street, the National Iranian American Council, Peace Action, and Planned Parenthood.

Universal Health Care

On September 3, 2003, Lee introduced H.R. 3000, the United States Universal Health Service Act, which called for governmental provision of healthcare coverage for all Americans. “The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not provide universal health care,” said Lee. “We must become a health care provider, not a denier of this fundamental right.”

Seeking to Have UN Monitor U.S. Presidential Election

In mid-2004, Lee, distrustful of the integrity of U.S. political elections, was one of thirteen congressional representatives who tried (unsuccessfully) to arrange for the United Nations to monitor the upcoming U.S. presidential election that November.

Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus

In 2005 Lee and forty fellow Democratic members of the House of Representatives established the Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus. The Caucus’s nominal co-founders were Lee, John Conyers, William Delahunt, John R. Lewis, Charles Rangel, Jan Schakowsky, Maxine Waters, and Lynn Woolsey.

Ties to Barack Obama

In 2008 Lee served as a Western regional co-chair of Senator Barack Obama‘s presidential campaign. She lauded Obama’s “message of fundamental change” for being “as close to a revolutionary message as we have had in decades.”

A strong supporter of the revolutionary communist Van Jones, Lee — a close friend of both Jones and Barack Obama — played a key role in Jones’s appointment as the Obama administration’s “green jobs czar” in 2009.

Calling for Expansion of Food Stamps

During her years in Congress, Lee has fought to expand food stamp coverage. In April 2008 she introduced legislation to reverse a provision in the 1996 welfare-reform bill that barred ex-convicts from receiving food stamps.

Supporting ACORN

When the House of Representatives voted by a 345-75 margin to defund the notoriously corrupt community organization ACORN in September 2009, Jackson Lee was one of the 75—all Democrats—who voted to continue funding the group.

Policy Toward Israel & Palestinians

On December 22, 2009, Lee was one of 33 U.S. Representatives who wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to press the Israeli government to lift its ban on Palestinian student travel between Gaza and the West Bank.

Five weeks later, Lee was one of 54 members of Congress to sign a letter asking President Barack Obama to push Israel to end its Gaza blockade, which had been enacted to prevent the flow of deadly weapons into that region.

In July 2019, Lee was one of 16 House Democrats who voted against a non-binding resolution that opposed the Hamas-inspired Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as an unjustifiable campaign to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. The resolution was voted down by a margin of 398-17.

Climate Change

In April 2013, Lee sponsored a bill stating that climate change could lead to drought and reduced agricultural output in much of the world, and that this would be particularly harmful to women. Said the bill: “[F]ood insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as [engaging in] sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health.”

Support for Fred Ross Sr.

In early 2013, Lee was one of dozens of prominent leftists who urged President Barack Obama to award, posthumously, the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the late Fred Ross Sr., a Saul Alinsky-trained radical who had mentored both Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.

Scheduled Meeting With Global Terrorist & Al-Qaeda Funder

Lee, along with Representatives Alan Grayson and Jan Schakowsky, was scheduled to meet on November 19, 2013 with Abdul Rahman Naimi, president and founder the Geneva-based human-rights NGO Al Karama, to discuss U.S. drone policy. Ultimately, Naimi was unable to attend the meeting because of visa issues. The following month, the U.S. Treasury Department designated him as a global terrorist and an al Qaeda financier.

Supporting CAIR

Lee has been a vocal supporter of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). For example:

• In September 2014 she said: “For the past twenty years, CAIR has been a staunch defender of the civil rights of American Muslims nationwide.”
• In October 2017 she said: “For more than twenty-three years, CAIR has been a tireless advocate for civil rights and religious freedom in our diverse nation.”
• In 2018 she wrote a letter of support to CAIR, on the occasion of the organization’s 24th anniversary.

Islamist Donations

Over the years, Lee has received numerous donations from high-ranking officials and/or board members of Islamist organizations. Specifically, from 2002-2016 she received a total of $4,600 in contributions from individuals affiliated with the American Muslims for Palestine, the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Society of North America, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Signatory of De Blasio’s Progressive Agenda

In 2015, Lee was one of the signers of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s “Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality.”

Member of the Democratic Party’s Platform Drafting Committee

In 2016, Lee was a member of the Democratic Party’s Platform Drafting Committee, a highly influential position in setting the party’s priorities and agendas.

Boycotting Trump Inauguration

Lee was one of dozens of Congressional Democrats who elected to boycott the January 20, 2017 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Introduction of a Bill to Remove Confederate Statues From the U.S. Capitol

In September 2017, Lee, along with Rep. Bennie Thompson and Senator Cory Booker, introduced a bicameral bill to remove Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol.

The three legislators re-introduced this bill in February 2021. “Symbols of bigotry and racism have no place in our society and certainly should not be enshrined in the U.S. Capitol,” said Lee. “It is past time for Congress to stop glorifying the men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to uphold slavery and white supremacy. The movement to honor Confederate soldiers was a deliberate act to rewrite the history of the United States and humanize acts designed to dehumanize African Americans. These statues are not representative of our values or our democracy. They are symbols of hatred and defiance of federal authority and should not be held in a place of honor in the U.S. Capitol.”

Supporting Planned Parenthood

At an April 2018 press conference on Capitol Hill, Lee spoke in favor of continued federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which, during its most recent fiscal year, had performed more than 321,000 abortions nationwide. “Your work really saves lives,” said the congresswoman.

Condemning Border Patrol Agents

In November 2018 — after reports that American border patrol agents had fired tear gas at migrants who were pelting them with rocks — Lee called for United Nations inspectors to go the U.S.-Mexico border because “the tear-gassing of women and children at the border is an atrocity” and “a violation of human rights.”

Refusing to Denounce Louis Farrakhan

When the Daily Caller in February 2018 contacted Lee and a number of her fellow Congressional Black Caucus members to ask if they would be willing to publicly denounce the notorious Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan because of his racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, Lee was one of 20 who declined not only to denounce him, but also to issue any comment at all regarding his infamous anti-Semitic, anti-white rhetoric.

Joining Kamala Harris Presidential Campaign

On February 14, 2019, Kamala Harris‘s presidential campaign announced that Lee would be its California co-chair.

Supporting the Green New Deal

In 2019 as well, Lee supported the Green New Deal proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a massive, multi-trillion-dollar plan designed to move America’s economy toward socialism — under the banner of environmentalist warnings that the Earth would soon face ecological calamity catastrophe if mankind failed to reduce the carbon emissions associated with industrial activity. In April 2019, Lee tweeted: “@AOC [Ocasio-Cortez] is right, we have an expiration date when it comes to climate change. The @UN’s newest report gives us 12 years to turn things around before environmental catastrophe. We need to take climate change seriously. Now”

Calling for the Re-Implementation of the Iran Nuclear Deal

Also in 2019, Lee — along with Reps. Jan Schakowsky and David Price — introduced, in the House of Representatives, a bill calling for the United States to return to compliance with the Iran nuclear deal from which President Trump had withdrawn the U.S. in May 2018.

Calling for Repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq

In January 2020, shortly after President Trump had ordered the U.S. military to kill Qasem Soleimani — the longtime leader of the terrorist Quds Force division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps — Lee introduced an amendment to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, the latter of which had been cited by the Trump administration as partial legal justification for the attack on Soleimani. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted 236-166 to approve Lee’s amendment.

Demanding That Congress Denounce the “Systemic Racism” of Police Forces

In response to the May 2020 death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man whose death following a physical altercation with a white police officer infamously set off a massive wave of violent riots across the United States, Lee joined 45 fellow House Democrats – including such notables as Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Ohmar, Karen Bass, and Jesus Garcia — in calling upon Congress to denounce the event as an emblem of the “systemic racism that has plagued law enforcement agencies throughout our history.”

Lee Co-Hosts Forum Featuring Cop-Killers & Former Black Panthers

On May 10, 2021, Lee and two fellow Democratic members of the House of Representatives – Steve Cohen and Bobby Rush – hosted a forum about COINTELPRO, the FBI program that tracked the activities of radical leftist organizations in the 1960s and ’70s. Speakers at the forum heaped praise upon several convicted and incarcerated cop-killers – including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Mutulu Shakur, and H. Rap Brown (a.k.a. Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin) – describing them as “political prisoners.” Lee, who had worked closely with the Black Panther Party (BPP) in the 1970s, introduced former Panther leader Ericka Huggins at the forum and described her as a “former colleague and comrade.” Huggins and another forum speaker, BPP co-founder Bobby Seale, had been charged in 1970 with the May 1969 torture and murder of 19-year-old BPP member Alex Rackley, who was suspected of providing information about the BPP to police. Though the charges against Huggins and Seale were eventually dropped after a jury was unable to reach a verdict, a tape recording that was introduced as evidence at their trial proved conclusively that Huggins had indeed been present while Rackley was being tortured. Moreover, in a 1977 retrospective of the case, The Washington Post reported that Huggins had admitted to: (a) boiling water that was subsequently poured onto Rackley as part of the torture, and (b) kicking Rackley and verbally abusing him while he sat tied to a chair.

Arrested at Pro-Abortion Rally

On July 19, 2022, Lee was one of at least 17 House Democrats who were arrested outside the Supreme Court building in Washington, where they were attending an abortion-rights rally to protest the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Those arrested included the following:

• New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
• Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar
• Missouri Rep. Cori Bush
• Massachusets Rep. Ayanna Pressley
• Massachusets Rep. Katherine Clark
• New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez
• California Rep. Barbara Lee
• California Rep. Jackie Speier
• California Rep. Sara Jacobs
• Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib
• North Carolina Rep. Alma Adams
• Pennsylvania Rep. Madeleine Dean
• New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman
• Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar
• Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky
• New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney
• Michigan Rep. Andy Levin

Voting Record

For an overview of Lee’s voting record on a number of key issues, click here.

Additional Information

One of Lee’s staunchest supporters has been Barbara Lubin, founder of the Middle East Children’s Alliance.

For additional information on Barbara Lee, click here.

Footnotes:

1. Mark Hemingway wrote in National Review that same month: “Lee’s fondness for the brutal dictator probably stems from the fact that he helped her good friend, Black Panther leader Huey Newton. Accused of killing an underage prostitute, assault, and tax evasion, Newton went to Cuba for three years in the mid-1970s rather than stand trial.” (Lee was also a close friend of Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale.)

Additional Resources:

Comrade Barbara
By Mark Hemingway
April 17, 2009