Marilyn Davis Holloman is a nurse practitioner and write-in candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida. She published a book, "Oil-For-Food: The Ambassador's Daughter," in 2011. According the publisher, Xlibris, the book is a non-fiction account of Tanzanian Minister Khamis Kegesheki Suedi's involvement in the Oil-For-Food Programme and the effect this had on his family.
In anticipation of the November 6 congressional elections, HuffPost Women spoke with her about who she is, why she's running and how to get involved with her campaign.
What's your favorite quality in another person?
Integrity.
What three words best describe you?
Empathy, advocate, loyal.
What's your biggest flaw?
Truth-seeking.
What failure are you most grateful for?
Truth-seeking.
If you weren't you, who would you be?
Anyone God ordained.
If you could live anywhere, where would that be?
In the present moment.
What woman do you most look up to?
Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, Indira Gandi, Gwendolyn Crichlow, Ermyn Stroud, Helen Schwab, Amina Suedi and Golda Meir.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Give people room to discover themselves.
What's your joy trigger?
Children.
What is your favorite book?
"Oil for Food: The Ambassador's Daughter" by Marilyn Holloman, ARNP-BC.
What is your favorite album?
"Gideon" -- Kenny Rogers.
What is your favorite thing you've ever worn and why?
My prom dress. I felt like a queen.
What talent do you wish you had?
Drawing.
What quality or accomplishment do you want people to know you for?
Validating the lives of women and children of UN diplomats and securing their child support payments.
What makes you feel the most free?
The love of God.
Why are you running?
My life experiences combined with my training as a nurse and caregiver have brought me here today. Since childhood I have had an abiding love for this country.
My grandparents were immigrants here from Barbados [through] Ellis Island in the 1920’s with the dream to make their fortunes during Harlem’s Renaissance in their hearts. Their two children were born here; my mother in a taxi cab on the way to Harlem Hospital. The Great Depression tried to destroy the dream with their return to the island. WWII, rationing, illness and their death heralded their children’s return to this country resolute.
Uncle Lincoln served in Germany during WWII, and his children now serve in industry, biotech and justice. My mother has cared for patients as a nurse for over fifty years, many here on the Treasure Coast. Her son, my brother has served our country and his city with distinction. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged our cousin posthumously for starting the first free legal clinics in America on the steps of Harlem’s Courthouse in 1975. She wrote nondiscriminatory case law on behalf of those suffering from mental illness and drug addiction. I was taught service and equity by example at an early age.
I see changes that are eroding our core democracies, values and integrity. Families of all ethnicities are struggling harder to provide a loving, stable, economically viable home to raise their children in. Families of children with disabilities, statistically, minority families already economically at or below the poverty line are being marginalized and disenfranchised socially and economically in the care of their children. Some families have “snapped” under those pressures and are irreparably broken.
Like an orphan drug, this includes the subgroup in existence in this country prior to the first mandates drafted to protect them by the United Nations in 1957; the American children of diplomats and ambassadors. The Geneva Convention on the Rights of Children and The Child Support and Family Maintenance Laws promulgated by the United Nations outline the remedies for these mothers and their children; blatantly unenforced by the United Nations itself and their employees for over fifty years. Our country is complicit, allowing their children to live at or below the poverty line on public assistance programs. I believe it is a crime that violates the tenets of international decency and the rule of common law. These children and their mothers are entitled to collect damages along with restitution.
- the ending of subsidies and sanctions for big business
- the mandate for job creation and restoration
- mandate the integrity of a living wage for families and individuals
- the integration of academia and industry to help assure that industry has the capacity to absorb new graduates
- the revision of NAFTA to restore the sovereignty of our industries and GDP
We need the rebuilding of private and public health trusts to insure a healthy nation with Nurse Practitioners as recognized partners, ending defacto restrict of trade between providers. We augment access to health care in this country at the frontlines. We should be allowed to practice within the construct of The Nurse Practice Act with prescriptive and diagnostic authority as granted by our training and experience. We are an essential complement to medicine and an essential member of America’s health care team in the military, public and private settings; including entrepreneurial ventures.
My training as a Team Leader and as a Family Nurse Practitioner diagnostician in nursing, as well as my natural disposition has equipped me to work tirelessly on your behalf to create viable approaches and solutions for families, individuals and systems.
What is the most important issue for women in this election?
Securing breakfast, lunch, dinner and shelter for our families in a stable environment.
How can readers get involved in your campaign?
Call to donate (772) 446-4085 or send checks payable.