Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan has begun speaking openly about her dark past.
The 45-year-old, who could become the state’s first female governor if Tim Walz is elected vice president, recently spoke out about how she witnessed her then-stepfather abuse her mother when she was about 10 years old.
“My mom stayed because she wanted me to be able to go to college,” Flanagan said on a recent visit to the Cornerstone Advocacy Center for victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence and human trafficking. reports the Minnesota Star Tribune.
He said he only realized that violence within the home was not normal when he went to college and discovered that other children did not grow up that way.
“Most people don’t call home to ask if I should come back after school or if I should go to my best friend Lauren’s house,” Flanagan said.
Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor of Minnesota, spoke out about the domestic violence she witnessed as a child.
Flanagan (pictured with her husband) may become the state’s first female governor if Tim Walz is elected vice president
But for many years, Flanagan did not feel comfortable talking about what she had endured, even as she connected with voters about other aspects of her personal life, such as discussing what it was like growing up with a single mother in St. Louis Park. that depended on public programs.
That began to change in 2009, when she went to Washington, D.C., with the progressive training group Wellstone Action to see then-Vice President Joe Biden receive an award from the Sheila Wellstone Institute for her advocacy for victims of domestic violence.
There, Flanagan said she felt compelled to tell Biden about the abuse she observed as a child.
‘I started crying and the vice president got up and gave me a hug. “I literally cried into his chest,” the lieutenant governor told the Star Tribune.
“And he said, ‘If you can tell that story to the vice president. I bet you can tell that story to other people.”
In later years, Flanagan began referring to herself as a “survivor and child witness of domestic abuse,” without going into detail about what happened.
He said that from the age of 10 he witnessed how his then stepfather abused his mother.
David Wellstone, who was with Flanagan on the 2009 trip, said that when the lieutenant governor now shares her story with others “it gives permission” to others to open up.
“There is a lot of stigma around this topic and there can be a lot of shame,” she said.
“When someone as powerful as her, and everything she’s accomplished, can talk about it, it gives a whole new level of hope and the ability for people to tell their story.”
Cornerstone staff members, including executive director Artika Roller, also said they heard Flanagan talk about her past at a rally for action among advocates and survivors.
“For me, it gives me hope that people can not only overcome traumatic situations, but that they can excel and thrive,” Roller said.
Flanagan said she is now a “cycle breaker” and is raising her daughter like one too
Flanagan, who is a member of the White Earth Nation, said she also wants young women, especially young Native American women, to know that “we can take up space and that we are valuable.”
“We need to talk about it,” said Flanagan, mother of a sixth-grade girl.
“I’m a cycle breaker and I’m raising a cycle breaker,” she said.
She also noted that the last time she saw Biden, he remembered their conversation from more than a decade ago.
“Flanagan,” he allegedly told her, “I bet you’ve saved a lot of lives.”
