Cori Bush

Cori Anika Bush (born July 21, 1976) is an American politician, nurse, pastor, and Black Lives Matter activist serving as the U.S. representative for , since 2021. The district includes all of the city of St. Louis and most of northern St. Louis County. A member of the Democratic Party, on August 4, 2020, Bush defeated 10-term incumbent Lacy Clay in a 2020 U.S. House of Representatives primary election largely viewed as a historic upset, advancing to the November general election in a solidly Democratic congressional district. Bush is the first African-American woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri. She previously ran in the Democratic primary for the district in 2018 and the 2016 U.S. Senate election in Missouri. She was featured in the 2019 Netflix documentary Knock Down the House, which covered her first primary challenge to Clay. Bush is a member of The Squad in the House of Representatives. Early life and education Bush was born on July 21, 1976, in St. Louis and graduated from Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School in 1994. Her father, Errol Bush, is an alderman in Northwoods, Missouri, and previously served as mayor. In the summer of 1994, Bush became pregnant after being raped. She chose to have an abortion. She had a second abortion when she was 19. Bush studied at Harris–Stowe State University for one year (1995–96) and worked at a preschool until 2001. She earned a Diploma in Nursing from the Lutheran School of Nursing in 2008. From 2011 to 2014, she served as a pastor at Kingdom Embassy International Church.