Booker, O’Rourke, Castro to attend women of color forum

Three Democratic presidential contenders have RSVP’d to an April forum on issues affecting women of color, according to NBC News.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) have all confirmed they will attend the event, scheduled April 24 by the progressive group She the People at Texas Southern University, a historically black school in Houston.

{mosads}All candidates have been invited to attend the event but only eight slots are available, according to the NBC report.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has not yet responded, according to the article, but held a rally at Texas Southern earlier this month.

“This forum will allow candidates to speak directly to one of the largest Democratic voting blocs — and most reliably Democratic — in the country ahead of a contentious primary,” She the People founder Aimee Allison told NBC.

Attendees will take questions from an audience of more than 1,000 people, with others having an option to submit questions through a livestream, according to Allison, who formed the group saying she thinks women of color are taken for granted and underrepresented as Democratic candidates and office-holders despite their historical support of the party, according to NBC.

“No Democrat is winning the nomination, or the White House, without women of color,” she told the network.

Several other Democratic candidates, including Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

The announcement comes the week after the Human Rights Campaign announced it will hold a similar campaign forum focused on LGBTQ issues for the first time since 2008.