Shirley’s KitchenA pioneering North Philadelphia lawmaker who spent more than two decades in the Pennsylvania Legislature advocating for working families and criminal justice reform has died at the age of 79.
Kitchen began her political career as an employee of the Philadelphia City Board of Elections from 1970-76, and in 1986 she became director of election services for the Philadelphia City Council. She won a special election to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in November 1987 and served until slow 1988. After an unsuccessful re-election bid, she returned to Harrisburg in 1996, winning a special election to the state Senate. Roxana Jonesbecoming the second African American woman to serve in that chamber.
(*79*) post on social mediaThe Pennsylvania Democratic Party said Kitchen “spent decades improving the lives of the communities she represented in North Philadelphia.”
Philadelphia Mayor Chelle Parker talked about Kitchen’s influence on a generation.
“Senator Shirley Kitchen served the people of North Philadelphia in Pennsylvania’s Third Senate District for 20 years and was a powerful, effective advocate for her constituents and all of Philadelphia,” Parker said in a social media post.
“Food insecurity, health care, public transportation, restorative justice, voting rights – Senator Kitchen was always on the front lines on important issues, fighting for people who often had no one else to fight for them. Senator Kitchen was the second Black woman to serve in the State Senate, and she was a pioneer and a role model for people like me. Shirley Kitchen cared about working people and cared about Philadelphia.”
“Her commitment to service and community in North Philadelphia is unparalleled,” the state said Representative Malcom Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia). “She was a mentor, a friend, a surrogate grandmother, and someone without whom the world will never be the same. From Philadelphia to Harrisburg, she blazed a trail and did so much to make a difference in people’s lives. I am lucky to have known her and to call her a friend.”
Sender TeaMartin he told the Philadelphia Tribune that Kitchen had a profound impact on her.
“Senator Kitchen meant the world to me. She instilled in me the belief that women elected to office and Black women elected to office are critical and that we must prepare the next layer of Black women to take political office,” Martin wrote in the text.
