Actor

United States · Male

4 series in the catalog

Jamaal Anthony Bowman (born April 1, 1976) is an American politician and former educator who served from 2021 to 2025 as the United States representative for New York's 16th congressional district.

Bowman is the founder and former principal of the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, a public middle school in Eastchester, Bronx. He defeated 16-term incumbent Eliot Engel in the 2020 Democratic primary and was first elected to Congress that November. He was a member of the Squad, an informal group of leftist members of the House Democratic Caucus. On October 26, 2023, Bowman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for willfully setting off a false fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building. Bowman paid a $1,000 fine and the charge was later dropped. On December 7, the House of Representatives voted 214–191 to censure him for the fire alarm incident.

A critic of U.S. support for Israel during the Gaza war, Bowman sought re-election in 2024, but lost renomination in the Democratic primary to Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Bowman lost renomination 41.4%–58.6% in what was the most expensive primary race for a House seat in U.S. history (until Thomas Massie's primary in 2026).

Early life and education

Jamaal Anthony Bowman was born on April 1, 1976, in Manhattan, a borough of New York City. He lived with his grandmother in the East River Houses in East Harlem during the week, and on weekends with his mother and sisters in Yorkville on the Upper East Side. His grandmother died when he was eight years old, after which he lived full time on the Upper East Side. At age 16, he moved with his family to Sayreville, New Jersey. He graduated from Sayreville War Memorial High School, where he played on the football team.

Bowman briefly attended Potomac State Junior College in West Virginia before earning a Bachelor of Arts in sports management from the University of New Haven in 1999. At the University of New Haven, he played college football as a linebacker for the New Haven Chargers. Bowman earned a Master of Arts in counseling from Mercy College in 2006 and a Doctor of Education in educational leadership from Manhattanville College in 2019.

Teaching career

After earning his undergraduate degree, Bowman decided not to pursue a career in sports management. Upon the suggestion of a family friend who worked for the New York City Department of Education, Bowman began working as an educator. His first job was as a crisis management teacher in a South Bronx elementary school. In 2009, he founded Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, a public middle school in the Bronx.

As principal of Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, Bowman curated a "wall of honor" featuring likenesses of prominent Black, Latino, and Asian individuals. Its honorees included Martin Luther King Jr., Sonia Sotomayor, Cynthia McKinney, Mutulu Shakur, and Assata Shakur. HuffPost political reporter Daniel Marans criticized Bowman for including "a notorious antisemite and two Black militants convicted of murder and armed robbery"; Bowman's campaign spokesperson responded that it is "a rhetorical tool of the far right to insinuate educating students on major figures of Black American history is serving to promote hateful or divisive rhetoric or actions." Bowman later denounced McKinney's statements as antisemitic.

Bowman became a leading advocate against standardized testing, calling it "slavery". His blog on the role of standardized testing received national attention. He wrote that high-stakes testing had a role in perpetuating inequalities, including turnover, tumult, and a vicious cycle it creates in students' and educators' lives, saying performance assessments damage a school's ability to teach.

Bowman also advocated for children to receive arts, history, and science education in addition to the basics of literacy and numeracy. Bowman's school policy used a restorative justice model to address the school-to-prison pipeline. After 10 years as principal, he left the job to focus on his congressional campaign.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2020

The progressive Justice Democrats recruited Bowman to run for the United States House of Representatives in New York's 16th congressional district, which was represented by 16-term incumbent Eliot Engel. The district included parts of the Bronx and Westchester County, respectively. Engel had served as a member of the House since 1989 and as chair of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs since the first session of the 116th United States Congress. Bowman was inspired to run by the insurgent 2018 campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He described his platform as "anti-poverty and anti-racist", with support for housing, criminal justice reform, education, Medicare for All, and a Green New Deal.

Bowman's campaign criticized Engel's record on foreign policy and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bowman's endorsements from the Sunrise Movement and the New York Working Families Party helped his campaign to raise funds, although Engel enjoyed a significant fundraising advantage. Bowman was also endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the editorial board of The New York Times.

Bowman won the primary on July 17, 2020, with 55% of the vote. In the general election, he defeated Conservative nominee Patrick McManus with 84% of the vote.

2022

Bowman was challenged in the Democratic primary by Westchester County legislator Vedat Gashi, who was endorsed by Bowman's predecessor and 2020 primary opponent, Eliot Engel. Redistricting affected the demographics of the district, which continued to include southern Westchester County and a portion of the northern Bronx. Bowman won the Democratic primary and proceeded to win the general election with 64% of the vote.

2024

A frequent critic of U.S. support for Israel during the Gaza war, Bowman was challenged by pro-Israel Westchester County Executive George Latimer in the Democratic primary. The New York Times described the contest as "a marquee showcase of the party's divisions over the Israel-Hamas war".

The primary was the most expensive House primary in U.S. history, with $15 million in outside spending coming from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) benefiting Latimer's campaign. Much of the outside spending came from groups affiliated with the pro-Israel AIPAC.

Latimer defeated Bowman, 58.59% to 41.41%. Bowman was the first of two Democratic congressional incumbents to lose a primary in the 2024 election cycle, with the other being Cori Bush. He also was the first member of the Squad to lose a primary.

Tenure

Upon his swearing-in, Bowman joined The Squad, a group of progressive Democratic lawmakers. He has been described as far left.

In January 2021, following the storming of the United States Capitol, Bowman introduced the Congressional Oversight of Unjust Policing Act (COUP Act) to establish a commission to investigate how United States Capitol Police handled the storming of the Capitol and to look at potential ties of some of its members to white nationalism. Bowman said that introducing the bill was "critical when you look at the disparity in terms of how the Capitol Police responded to the insurrection on Wednesday, versus how they responded to—not just [Black Lives Matter] protestors this summer, but other people of color, and people who are disabled, historically". The legislation came after Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer called for the Capitol Police chief's resignation.

On November 5, 2021, Bowman was one of six House Democrats to break with their party and vote against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act because it did not include the Build Back Better Act.

In 2023, Bowman reintroduced H.R. 4108, the Healthy Future Students and Earth Pilot Program Act, which he cosponsored in 2021 with Nydia Velázquez. The bill aimed to establish a pilot grant program introducing plant-based food and beverage options in…