'Great Things Come Out of Discomfort': An Interview with Our Revolution's Nina Turner.

• Author: Stockwell, Norman
• Position: Interview

Nina Turner is a lifelong activist from a working-class family in Cleveland, Ohio. Before serving as an Ohio state senator, she held elected office at the city level in her home state beginning in 2005. Turner came to national prominence as an outspoken supporter of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in his 2016 bid for the presidency. In June 2017, Turner became president of Our Revolution, the nonprofit organization that grew out of Sanders's presidential campaign. We spoke by telephone in early September.

Q: Let's start by talking a little bit about your back-ground, growing up in Cleveland.

Nina Turner: I'm the oldest of seven children. My parents got divorced when I was really young so I grew up in a single-parent household, which I believe gives me my deep sensitivity to people who struggle socially and economically. We have to have people--particularly but not exclusively in the elected space--who understand that they are there to really push public policies and help create vehicles and opportunity.

One of the things that really attracted me to Senator Sanders is the whole notion that we should invest in colleges and universities so people have the opportunity to go to school tuition free. Had it not been for higher education, I don't know where I would be today. I am a first-generation college graduate and that has made all the difference in my life and the life of my family.

I got a chance to work for a state senator in the late 1990s. And that really opened my eyes to state government. I never dreamt that I would go on to become a state senator. After that internship, I worked for Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White. And then I ran for city council for the very first time in 2001. I didn't win that race, but four years later, I ran again and won.

After that, I became a state senator in 2008, and served in the Ohio senate for about six years. I could have run one more time but I elected instead to run for Ohio secretary of state in 2014. It was a hard experience but it helped me go to the next level in terms of increasing my profile and meeting so many people across the state.

We have eighty-eight counties in Ohio and I was able to visit the overwhelming majority of those counties. I came to see that people in rural communities want the same things as people in urban areas. They want to be able to live a good life, have a safe community, with a future for themselves and their children. And that is universal.

And so that experience in 2014...