Cynthia McKinney
American politician and activist
Cynthia Ann McKinney (born March 17, 1955) is a former American politician. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms in the United States House of Representatives. She was the first African American woman elected to represent Georgia in the House. She left the Democratic Party and ran in 2008 as the presidential nominee of the Green Party. She ran for vice president in 2020 after the Green Party of Alaska formally nominated her and draft-nominated Jesse Ventura for president.
McKinney served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1988 to 1992. In the 1992 election, McKinney was elected in Georgia's newly re-created 11th district, and was re-elected in 1994. When her district was redrawn and renumbered due to the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Miller v. Johnson, McKinney was elected from the new 4th district in the 1996 election. She was re-elected twice more without substantive opposition, but was defeated by Denise Majette in the 2002 Democratic primary.
“Cynthia McKinney” enters the record as american politician and activist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cynthia, McKinney and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Cynthia McKinney” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Cynthia, McKinney and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q242019. VIAF identifies the subject as 2096921. The Library of Congress control number is no99021030. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 2008, 2020 and 1988.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Cynthia McKinney”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Cynthia McKinney primary sources, Cynthia McKinney archive and Cynthia research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cynthia McKinney”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Cynthia McKinney” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.