HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee is being remembered by those who knew her after she lost her battle with pancreatic cancer on Friday.
Jackson-Lee represented Texas’ 18th District for the past 29 years and was running for her 16th term.
“To most people, she was Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee; to me, she was Auntie Sheila,” said Lawrence Bell, who has known Jackson-Lee his entire life.
Jackson-Lee and Bell’s mother were in the same sorority, and he spent much of his childhood campaigning for her re-election to Congress.
“If I could combine Dr. X, Magneto, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman into one, you get Sheila,” Bell added.
Maxine Lane-Seals, who met Jackson-Lee in 1980 before she had been elected to any office, praised her dedication.
“She was the hardest-working politician I’ve ever seen,” Lane-Seals said.
Jackson-Lee’s first three bids for judge were unsuccessful until she was appointed a municipal judge in 1987. In 1989, she won an at-large position on Houston City Council, becoming the first African-American woman elected to citywide office.
University of Houston political science professor Nancy Sims, who advised Jackson-Lee during that council race, said, “She hired me because men wouldn’t work for her, and there weren’t a lot of options.”
Sims mentioned that Jackson-Lee championed women’s rights after being elected to Congress in 1994. She led the effort to renew the Violence Against Women Act, pushed for legislation to prosecute police misconduct, and sponsored the bill that made Juneteenth a federal holiday.
“She was someone who had to be out there, had to be working,” Lane-Seals noted.
Jackson-Lee’s friends said her dedication was evident in her frequent appearances at funerals and church services throughout her district.
“You could be assured if you called her, she was going to be there,” Lane-Seals said.
Lane-Seals, who has served on the North Forest ISD school board since the 1980s, expressed her gratitude for Jackson-Lee’s efforts to save the school district, even though it was ultimately dissolved in 2013.
“Sheila was the only elected official who stood tall and stood with this community,” Lane-Seals said.
Jackson-Lee was 74 years old.
