DETROIT — When Hazel Dukes stepped onto the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion stage in 1972 to sec­ond Shirley Chisholm’s pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion, it amount­ed to more than history.

It was a moment of hope.

The lega­cy of Chisholm, who famous­ly said she was “unbossed and unboth­ered,” was cement­ed that day as the first Black woman to run for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion. Dukes said Chisholm and oth­ers hoped her his­toric run would lay the foun­da­tion for future gen­er­a­tions of Black women to ascend into pow­er­ful polit­i­cal roles to ush­er in sys­temic change with­in their communities.

And 48 years lat­er, that hope is being real­ized as Cal­i­for­nia Sen. Kamala Har­ris pre­pares to accept the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s vice pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion on Wednes­day. She will be the first Black woman and first Asian Amer­i­can woman named to a major par­ty pres­i­den­tial ticket.

“Shirley exhib­it­ed the strength of Ida B. Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune and Fan­nie Lou Hamer and she was a pow­er­house,” said Dukes, 88, a life­long activist and cur­rent pres­i­dent of the NAACP New York State Con­fer­ence. “African Amer­i­can women, we’ve been in this strug­gle. And now we are show­ing our pow­er and our strength. We are say­ing this is our moment and our space, and we are claim­ing it.”

That ener­gy could decide whether Har­ris and Joe Biden win in Novem­ber. Black vot­ers, espe­cial­ly women, are a crit­i­cal part of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic coali­tion and could sway the results in crit­i­cal states such as Michi­gan, Penn­syl­va­nia, Wis­con­sin, North Car­oli­na and Florida.

But his­tor­i­cal­ly, Black women have fought the racism and sex­ism that pre­vent­ed them from hav­ing promi­nent roles with­in the move­ments for women’s suf­frage and civ­il rights. While their orga­niz­ing and polit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions had mea­sur­able impact, experts say, they were large­ly rel­e­gat­ed to the side­lines, or in some cas­es, seem­ing­ly wiped from the his­tor­i­cal record.

That reminder is espe­cial­ly clear as Amer­i­ca marks the 100th anniver­sary of the 19th Amend­ment, which gave women the right to vote — a right that most Black women weren’t afford­ed until much later.

“This is cer­tain­ly a water­shed moment for them, but I do think it’s impor­tant to empha­size that descrip­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion, as pow­er­ful as this is for women, is only that much more sweet­er when it results in sub­stan­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” said Ravi Per­ry, Howard University’s polit­i­cal sci­ence chair. “That upper glass ceil­ing is still there, and we are still one of the last devel­oped nations to see a woman head of state.”

So, while Har­ris is set to address the nation for what some hope will be a rous­ing speech at a time of immense eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty and racial reck­on­ing, oth­ers hope her remarks will be set against the lega­cy of the many Black women on whose shoul­ders they believe she stands.

Her speech fol­lows for­mer first lady Michelle Oba­ma, whose pow­er­ful remarks Mon­day kicked off the con­ven­tion and out­lined the dire stakes for the elec­tion ahead. She declared that Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump was “in over his head” and the “wrong pres­i­dent for our country.”

Mrs. Oba­ma hint­ed at the lega­cy of Black women in pol­i­tics and how, even in 2020, a Black woman speak­ing with con­vic­tion at the con­ven­tion might not be met with open arms by some, a stark reminder that the road to promi­nence with­in pol­i­tics and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has not been easy for women of col­or, espe­cial­ly Black women.

“Now, I under­stand that my mes­sage won’t be heard by some peo­ple,” Mrs. Oba­ma said. “We live in a nation that is deeply divid­ed, and I am a Black woman speak­ing at the Demo­c­ra­t­ic convention.”

The first Black woman to run tech­ni­cal­ly for vice pres­i­dent was Char­lot­ta Bass in 1952. Bass, who was a news­pa­per pub­lish­er, ran through the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty, accord­ing to author and Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty his­to­ry pro­fes­sor Martha Jones.

Bass receives lit­tle atten­tion, Jones said, because her rad­i­cal ideas at the time were met with great resistance.

“I think there’s a temp­ta­tion to kind of san­i­tize Black women’s polit­i­cal his­to­ry, and I think part of the rea­son we don’t remem­ber Bass is because she doesn’t fit a shiny, pol­ished mold of respectable Black women,” said Jones, whose forth­com­ing book is “Van­guard: How Black Women Broke Bar­ri­ers, Won the Vote, and Insist­ed on Equal­i­ty for All.”

“Black women have always been ambi­tious and nim­ble and will­ing to engage in a broad range of polit­i­cal views in order to fig­ure out the prob­lem of an Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy that for so long dis­ap­points Black Amer­i­cans,” she said.

But the lega­cy of Black women extends beyond pol­i­tics, accord­ing to John­net­ta Cole, who became the first African Amer­i­can female pres­i­dent of his­tor­i­cal­ly Black Spel­man Col­lege and nation­al chair of the Nation­al Coun­cil of Negro Women.

“I have had this extra­or­di­nary hon­or of see­ing strong Black women lead­ers, and there’s an expres­sion of, ‘If you see one, you can be one,’” said Cole, who was men­tored by civ­il rights leg­ends Mary McLeod Bethune and Dorothy Height. “We are shaped and we are pro­pelled by oth­ers. There’s no ques­tion that our fore­moth­ers paved the way. But while we can talk in a moment about the extra­or­di­nary, exquis­ite selec­tion of Sen. Kamala Har­ris, let’s not declare that it’s all victory.”

Much work remains. Amer­i­ca has yet to have its first Black female gov­er­nor. And while inroads have been made, Black women remain sig­nif­i­cant­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed in politics.

And younger grass­roots orga­niz­ers are bal­anc­ing the his­toric nature of Har­ris’ selec­tion with her record as Cal­i­for­nia attor­ney gen­er­al and dis­trict attor­ney in San Fran­cis­co, which some believe could make it dif­fi­cult for her and Biden to gal­va­nize sup­port among younger Black and Lati­no voters.

Some of Har­ris’ crit­ics say she focused on issues that pun­ished poor and minor­i­ty fam­i­lies. Among them, she took on tru­an­cy and sup­port­ed a statewide law mod­eled on her city ini­tia­tive that threat­ened par­ents with jail time, fines and lost pub­lic ben­e­fits if they failed to send their chil­dren to school. But in recent years, Har­ris has sup­port­ed more pro­gres­sive crim­i­nal jus­tice reform measures.

Karis­sa Lewis, the Move­ment for Black Lives’ nation­al field direc­tor, said she knows many activists who are inspired by Har­ris and oth­ers who have been “deeply and neg­a­tive­ly impact­ed by some of the his­tor­i­cal lega­cy of Harris.”

But Lewis said it’s too soon to know whether Har­ris will tru­ly fol­low in the steps of women who came before her like Fan­nie Lou Hamer, a beloved civ­il rights activist.

“It is clear to us at M4BL that no mat­ter who occu­pies the White House in Jan­u­ary, it will require sus­tained strug­gle in build­ing our polit­i­cal pow­er to be able to shape a true Black nation­al agen­da,” Lewis said.

“Fan­nie Lou Hamer is the mod­el and some­one that a lot of folks in mod­ern-day move­ments look to,” she said. “So think­ing back to some of Fannie’s pow­er­ful speech­es, it was clear that she was speak­ing for the peo­ple and felt account­able to the peo­ple. I think time will tell if Har­ris sees her­self aligned with move­ment and brings move­ment along with her.”

Kat Stafford is a mem­ber of The Asso­ci­at­ed Press’ Race and Eth­nic­i­ty team.