The lack of a Black woman in the Senate has turned a moment of triumph for many thrilled to see Kamala Harris ascend to the vice presidency into something more bittersweet.

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When Kamala Harris was inaugurated as vice president of the United States, she made history. But her departure from the Senate made history of a different kind. There are now no Black women in the 100-person body. NPR's Juana Summers has been talking with Black Democratic women about what they plan to do.

JUANA SUMMERS, BYLINE: In an election cycle that delivered Democrats unified control of Congress and the White House, there was only one Black woman on the ballot running for the U.S. Senate. Her name is Marquita Bradshaw.

MARQUITA BRADSHAW: The dynamic of there not being another African American woman in the whole United States that was running for U.S. Senate made me work harder.

SUMMERS: Bradshaw is an environmental justice advocate who won an upset victory in Tennessee's Democratic primary, defeating the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's preferred candidate. Also, she was running in a state that hasn't elected a Democratic senator since Al Gore in 1990. She says fundraising was a struggle from the start.

BRADSHAW: I remember just trying to get the first $100 to open up the account and how hard it was to get somebody to give $100 to me.

SUMMERS: Even after Bradshaw won her primary, she says she got no institutional support. Bradshaw lost in November by about 800,000 votes. Jessica Byrd is a Democratic strategist. She says that when gains have been made by Black women, they've often occurred in places where those women have bucked the wishes of their party and run anyway.

JESSICA BYRD: There are many, many, many Black women who are both qualified and want to run and have really been gate-kept from being able to do so.

SUMMERS: This problem is not unique to Democrats. Not one Black Republican woman has served in the Senate. But because of the role that Black women have and do play at the core of the Democratic Party, it is an absence that is deeply felt and one that there is a fierce urgency to repair. Senate Democrats' Campaign Committee endorsed an array of racially diverse candidates this cycle, including Raphael Warnock, the first Black Democratic senator from the South. None of the Senate candidates the committee backed, however, were Black women. The committee pointed to an aggressive effort to push Stacey Abrams to run for Senate in Georgia, but she declined.

Stefanie Brown James, a co-founder of Collective PAC, says her top priority for 2024 is to elect a Black woman to the U.S. Senate. But she also issued a call to action.

STEFANIE BROWN JAMES: The entire progressive community needs to really put their money where their mouth is. Don't just say that, you know, Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party. No, you need to show us with support and with resources that you understand the importance of Black women not just as voters, but as candidates as well.

SUMMERS: One of many big barriers is fundraising. Raising money simply opens doors - to attention from deep-pocketed donors, as well as from the party establishment itself. And competitive Senate campaigns are really expensive. Carol Moseley Braun was the first Black woman senator.

CAROL MOSELEY BROWN: The party establishment does not appreciate or embrace candidates until the candidates have already won, and that's unfortunate. And if you don't start off with a Rolodex full of people who can write you, you know, big checks and write big checks to the party, you try to do it, you know, pass-the-hat kind of way - that doesn't work anymore.

SUMMERS: There is also a lack of investment and recruitment for candidates at the state and local levels and, according to Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California, outdated notions of what a good candidate looks like.

BARBARA LEE: The pipeline is extremely important. But we have to understand also that the same criteria for white men, for example, can't be applied to the African American women.

SUMMERS: Lee and other Black women on Capitol Hill are working to secure a seat for a Black woman in the Senate.

LEE: We can't go back. There are no African American women in the United States Senate. And so we're working day and night to put together the infrastructure and what's needed to be able to - when an African American woman surfaces and believes she can run and win or can run an effective race, then we have to be ready to support her.

SUMMERS: Lee's House colleague, Lisa Blunt Rochester is the first Black person and first woman to represent the state of Delaware.

LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: When a person's voice is not in the room, sometimes people don't even know that they're missing it. And it hampers and dampens and makes us not as effective. I love Shirley Chisholm's quote that everybody knows, that if they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. That's really what this moment is about.

SUMMERS: Juana Summers, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.