Assistant Professor Michael Strawbridge has received an award from The Association for the Study of Black Women in Politics for his article examining the differences in how Black Congresswomen and men communicate on Twitter. 

The article, titled, "Rhetorical Promises: Gender Diversity Among Congressional Black Caucus Members’ Representation on Twitter," won the Mae C. King Distinguished Paper Award on Women, Gender and Black Politics. The piece was originally published in the January 2025 edition of the journal Political Communication. 

The Mae C. King award is named for Dr. Mae King, Professor Emerita of Political Science at Howard University, and the first African American Senior Staff Associate of the American Political Science Association. According to Howard University's website, "Dr. Mae King "paved the way for a generation of Black political scientists generally, and Black female political scientists particularly", Sherri L. Wallace et al. wrote and that she "has made a significant contribution to the modern Black Liberation Movement, and to other fields of study, including African studies, Black studies, and Black women's studies."

The award is given each year to "the best paper presented by a political scientist on women, gender and Black Politics at a national or regional Political Science conference in the past academic year."

Read the abstract of the article below and the full article on the journal's website.

ABSTRACT

In 1971, Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) was the only female founder of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Today, Black women comprise about half of the legislative caucus. As the members of the CBC become more diverse and prioritize intersectional identities in the political representation of Black communities, race as the single-axis priority of the caucus may complicate the coalition’s ability to form consensus. Building on extant studies focusing on the diversity within the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), we find substantial differences in how Black Congresswomen and men communicate on Twitter. Relative to Democratic Black men, Democratic Black women are more likely to discuss substantive public policy issues and to frame them as raced and gendered. Our findings have implications not only for the CBC but also for any single-axis legislative caucus’ ability to represent their constituents.