The First: How Leslyn McBean-Clairborne Inspires Change in Ithaca
As a student at Cornell, it is a great relief to know that someone capable of understanding me has also represented hundreds of people like me as “the first” of her kind. My interviewee, Leslyn McBean-Clairborne, has held several other political leadership positions during her tenure in the Tompkins County legislature. It was the many accolades that McBean-Clairborne has received that prompted me to name the title of my podcast “The First.”
McBean-Clairborne is from British Guiana originally, but has lived in Ithaca for over twenty-six years now. She has earned two Bachelors of Science degrees in K-12 education and Intercultural Communication/Adult Education. Currently, she is the Greater Ithaca Activities Center’s (GIAC) deputy director. She is both a wife and mother who has learned to juggle her occupational obligations and attempt to be at home in time for dinner. She was elected as a Tompkins County Legislator representing the City of Ithaca, and in 2006 she was also elected as chairperson of the legislature (she was the first person of color to be elected as such in Tompkins County Government). She was also the first Tompkins County lawmaker to be the recipient of an award from an LGBTQ advocacy group (she was named Ally of the Year by the organization Finger Lakes Pulse). She has also chaired the Public Safety and the Workforce Diversity and Inclusion Committees.
Subsequently, I was honored to actually interview McBean-Clairborne and ask her the pressing questions I had about her personal brand of leadership, and her thoughts on how Black women might enter the political fold. I was not at all surprised by how altruistic her work was in the fields of social, political, and economic justice. She knew what it was like to be a low-income, working-class single mother with young children ostracized by the affluent white men that dominated the political arena, but she fought for change even outside of her role at GIAC. She is passionate about integrating the Ithaca community at large—including those that do not understand the political rhetoric that determines their reality—and advocates that the legislature accept other individuals with varying experiences. Eliminating poverty was another major cornerstone of McBean-Clairborne’s agenda as someone who has faced it head-on. With her indomitable spirit and willingness to learn politics from the ground up, she proved that no one was more suited to the job than her.
In fact, despite her initial insistence that “she isn’t interested in politics,” McBean-Clairborne’s contributions to the Ithaca community loudly says otherwise. With her background in community organizing and diversity efforts, she serves as an inspiration for any Black women who plans on blazing a trail in both political leadership and collective activism.
Works Cited (Image)
Jessica Wickham on February 03, 2021. “Democratic View: The Sting of Systemic Racism – Tompkins Weekly.” Tompkins Weekly –, 24 Feb. 2021, www.tompkinsweekly.com/articles/democratic-view-the-sting-of-systemic-racism/.