Meet the Jamaica-born Republican, retired Marine, mother, and first black woman to serve as Virginia’s lieutenant governor.                           

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Independent Women’s Forum is pleased to announce that Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears is the latest entry into our popular series of Champion Women profiles. ([link removed])

Earle-Sears, who was sworn in as lieutenant governor along with Governor Glenn Youngkin on January 22, in Richmond, Va., is the first black woman to serve in this capacity. She is also one of the most upbeat politicians in the country.

“I’m telling you that what you are looking at is the American dream,” Earle-Sears told a cheering crowd in the early morning hours of the day after the November election, when it was clear that she had cinched the job.

Earle-Sears is a Jamaica-born Republican, retired Marine, businesswoman, and mother. And is she ever capable of a stemwinder of a speech.

"When I joined the Marine Corps, I was still a Jamaican,” Earle-Sears recalled for her enthusiastic supporters on the morning she won the office. “But this country had done so much for me, I was willing, willing, to die for this country.”

Earle-Sears is the kind of Republican who strikes fear into the hearts of her former political party. She is just the sort of dynamic, black politician in a high-visibility job who might inspire other African Americans to consider the Republican party. Earle-Sears herself had automatically assumed she was a Democrat. She is asked to tell the story about how she realized she was a … Republican. “I’m not sure you have the time for that, but I’ll give you the quick version,” the lieutenant governor says, chuckling.

Earle-Sears first ran for office in 2001, defeating a 20-year incumbent. The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund dubbed it a “Winsome v. Goliath” saga. Almost as suddenly as she had appeared on the political scene, Earle-Sears vanished from politics to help her daughter Dejon, who suffered from bipolar disorder. When Dejon and two of Earle-Sears’ grandchildren died in an automobile accident in 2012, the distraught mother turned to her faith.

Encouraged by her husband, Terrence Sears, also a former Marine, and her own worries that the country was in trouble, Earle-Sears resolved to run for lieutenant governor. “How can America remain a superpower without an education system that works?” she asks. Her belief in rigorous academic standards over trendy ideologies made her a natural running mate for Youngkin.

We know you’ll enjoy getting a look at a lady who, tested by adversity, epitomizes the kind of courage, determination, and grace so needed just now in politics.
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Sincerely,

Charlotte Hays
Cultural Director
Independent Women's Forum

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