U.S. Congressman Antonio Delgado: Race and Identity in Politics

When U.S. Congressman Antonio Delgado was running for Congress in 2018, his race made national headlines after attack ads portrayed him as an outsider and a threat. A New York Times article from the election noted: “He’s a Rhodes Scholar. The GOP Keeps Calling Him a ‘Big-City Rapper.’” The congressman, who is Black, is the first person of color to represent his rural district in upstate New York, where the population is almost 90 percent white.

He joins host Porter Braswell to discuss the hidden obstacles he’s faced in his political and corporate career as a Black man operating in largely white spaces, how he engages with race in his work, and how he works across differences in Congress to find common ground.