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The Rise of Royceann Her journey from Iowa newcomer to local leader was paved in blood, sweat and social justice. BY PAUL BRENNAN
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our days before the Iowa Caucus, Johnson County Supervisor Royceann Porter got a phone call from Pete Buttigieg. “This was the first time I’d heard from him in the whole 14 months of the campaign,” Porter said. “He said, ‘Do you think I could persuade you to come over to my team?’” Porter had endorsed Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president earlier that week. “I said, ‘No sir,’” she recalled, laughing. It’s no surprise Buttigieg would call Porter. He’s been trying to prove he can win over voters of color, and Porter made history in 2018 when she became the first black person elected to countywide office in Johnson County. And long before her election victory, Porter had a reputation as a leading social justice activist, someone people of color and others who felt unrepresented could turn to for help and advice. Porter had started caucus season as a staunch supporter of Sen. Cory Booker, who had endorsed her when she was running for the Board of Supervisors. Despite her commitment to Booker, when Sen. Kamala Harris held her first town hall in Iowa City, Harris chose Porter to be its moderator. When Booker dropped out of the race in January, several campaigns tried to earn her endorsement before she chose Warren. The results of the 2020 Iowa Caucus may have been muddled, but they did show one thing clearly: Royceann Porter has come a long way from when she moved to Iowa three decades ago to take a job at a slaughterhouse. •
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“I was born and raised in Saginaw, Michigan,” Porter said. “I grew up in the projects. To me, it was a wonderful childhood.” But like a lot of cities, Saginaw saw a large influx of drugs in the 1980s, along with an increase in violence and other related problems. “I just didn’t want to be there anymore,” Porter said. 14 Feb. 19–Mar. 3, 2020 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV279
Zak Neumann / Little Village
In 1989, she went to an IBP job fair. IBP— Iowa Beef Processors—was a meatpacking company, the largest beef packer and the second-largest pork processor in the country. (In 2001, it was purchased by Tyson Foods.) The company was in Michigan recruiting workers for its pork processing plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa. “At that time minimum wage was $3.35 an hour, and they were paying $6 an hour,” Porter recalled. IBP was also offering to arrange housing for workers. “They were telling us a lot of good stuff
about living down here in Iowa,” Porter said. “So, a bunch of us packed up like the Beverly Hillbillies and came on down to Washington County.” There was an immediate culture shock. Rural Iowa was very different than Saginaw, or any other place she’d spent time. There was also immediate disappointment. The housing was a shared mobile home in a trailer court in Washington. The company was charging an exorbitant rent, and that rent was automatically deducted from an employee’s paycheck.
