REP. AYANNA PRESSLEY (D-MA)
Ayanna Soyini Pressley (born February 3, 1974) is an American politician who has served as the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 7th congressional district since 2019. Her district includes the northern three quarters of Boston, most of Cambridge, and parts of Milton, as well as all of Chelsea, Everett, Randolph, and Somerville.
A member of the Democratic Party, Pressley defeated the ten-term incumbent Mike Capuano in the primary election and ran unopposed in the general election. She had previously been elected as an at-large member of the Boston City Council in 2010. Pressley was the first black woman elected to the Boston City Council and the first black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts.
Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but raised in Chicago, Illinois, the only child of mother Sandra Pressley (née Echols), who worked multiple jobs to support the family and also worked as a community organizer for the Chicago Urban League advocating for tenant’s rights, and father Martin Terrell, who struggled with addiction and was incarcerated throughout Pressley’s childhood, but eventually earned multiple degrees and taught at college level. The marriage ended in divorce.
Pressley grew up on the north side of Chicago and attended the Francis W. Parker School. While at the prestigious private school, she was a cheerleader, did modeling and voice-over work, appeared in Planned Parenthood bus advertisements, and was a competitive debater. During her senior year of high school, she was voted the “most likely to be mayor of Chicago” and was the commencement speaker for her class.
Her mother later moved to Brooklyn, where she worked as an executive assistant and later remarried. When Pressley was elected to the Boston City Council, her mother would often attend the public meetings, wearing a hat that said “Mama Pressley.”
From 1992 to 1994, Pressley attended the College of General Studies at Boston University, but she left school to take a full-time job at the Boston Marriott Copley Place to support her mother, who had lost her job. She took further courses at Boston University Metropolitan College, also known as MET.
