Ezola Foster
Foster in 2000
Born	(1938-08-09)August 9, 1938 Maurice, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	May 22, 2018(2018-05-22) (aged 79) Boulder City, Nevada, U.S.
Alma mater	Texas Southern University (BA) Pepperdine University
Political party	Constitution (2002–2018)
Other political affiliations	Democratic (before 1984) Republican (1984–2000) Reform (2000–2002)

Ezola Broussard Foster (August 9, 1938 – May 22, 2018)^[1] was an Americanconservativepolitical activist, writer, and politician. She was president of theinterest group Black Americans for Family Values, author of the bookWhat's Right for All Americans, and theReform Party candidate forvice president in the2000 U.S. presidential election with presidential nomineePat Buchanan. In April 2002, Foster left the Reform Party for theConstitution Party.

Foster was born in 1938 and reared inMaurice inVermilion Parish in southwesternLouisiana.^[2] In 1960, she graduated with aBA in Business Education fromTexas Southern University. She would go on to earn, in 1973, aMaster's in School Management and Administration fromPepperdine University.^[2] In 1960, she moved toLos Angeles,California, where she was employed as a publichigh school teacher for thirty-three years—teaching typing, business courses, and sometimesEnglish classes.^[2]

Foster first ran for office in 1986, securing the Republican nomination for theCalifornia Assembly's 48th district. In the general election, she faced incumbent assemblywoman Maxine Waters; a third candidate, Libertarian José "Joe" Castañeda, was also in the race.^[3] In the three-person race, Foster placed second, securing 12.77 percent of the vote but losing to Waters by 72 percentage points.^[3] In 1992, she was a staunch defender of the police officers in theRodney King beating case and organized a testimonial dinner for Laurence Powell, one of the convicted officers, in 1995.^[4]

In 1994, while teaching atBell High School inBell, California, Foster was a public advocate ofProposition 187, a California ballot initiative to deny government programs ofsocial services,health care, andpublic education to illegal immigrants. Her position was extremely unpopular at the school where she taught, which was 90 percentHispanic.^[5] In 1996, she appeared onPBS'sMacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour to promote her new political book,What's Right for All Americans. During her appearance, she argued that illegal immigration was responsible for the low quality of Los Angeles schools; some of her colleagues at the school condemned her in an open letter.^[5] Two days later, she attended an anti-illegal immigration rally where several of her supporters were attacked by members of theProgressive Labor Party, who allegedly wanted to harm Foster herself.^[5] Shortly thereafter, she left her job, which she calls a necessity resulting from her treatment at work.^[5] She went on speaking tours for the John Birch Society and took workers' compensation for an undisclosed mental disorder—which she describes as "stress" and "anxiety"—until her officialretirement as a teacher in 1998.^[5]

Foster appeared onLarry King Live,CBS This Morning,CNN & CO.,Nightline, NewsTalk Television,CNN Live,MSNBC,Politically Incorrect, and variousCBS,NBC, andABC newscasts.^[6]

Pat Buchanan, noting Foster's conservative media credentials and public speaking ability, asked her to be his running mate afterJim Traficant ofOhio,Teamsters Union presidentJames P. Hoffa, and others declined his request. His critics claimed Foster, who had never held political office, was chosen because she was African American; they likened it toaffirmative action, a diversity-increasing policy that Buchanan had always opposed.^[4]

Foster, who supported Buchanan's campaigns in 1992 and 1996, quit her speaking tour to join the race. While Buchanan was hospitalized during part of the campaign, Foster was the face of the campaign, making television and radio appearances. She is the first African American and second woman (afterGeraldine Ferraro) to be nominated for vice president by a party that was recognized and funded by theFederal Election Commission.^[4] During the campaign, Foster was the source of some controversy, drawing criticism for her membership in theJohn Birch Society and for her alleged mental illness which kept her from teaching.^[5]

Foster ran for Congress in the June 5, 2001, special election in California's32nd district to replace deceased representativeJulian Dixon as theReform Party candidate and garnered 1.5% of the vote.^[7]

Foster wasCatholic. Her first marriage ended inannulment, she said, when she found out that her husband was a convictedfelon.^[8] In 1977 she married Chuck Foster, a truck driver.^[9]

• Foster, Ezola (1995).What's Right for All Americans. Waco, Texas: Wrs Publications.ISBN 978-1-56796-058-7.

• Black conservatism in the United States

• Issues2000.org – Some of Foster's campaign positions and quotations
• Foster, Ezola (August 31, 1995). "Let the Children be Children".National Minority Politics

• Ezola Foster atIMDb
• Appearances onC-SPAN

• 1938 births
• 2018 deaths
• 20th-century African-American women politicians
• 20th-century African-American politicians
• 20th-century American women politicians
• 20th-century African-American women writers
• 20th-century American women writers
• 20th-century African-American writers
• 20th-century American non-fiction writers
• 20th-century Roman Catholics
• 21st-century African-American women politicians
• 21st-century American women politicians
• 21st-century African-American politicians
• 21st-century African-American women writers
• 21st-century African-American writers
• 21st-century American non-fiction writers
• 21st-century Roman Catholics
• 2000 United States vice-presidential candidates
• Activists from Houston
• Activists from Los Angeles
• African-American candidates for Vice President of the United States
• African-American Catholics
• African-American people in California politics
• American political writers
• American Roman Catholic writers
• American women non-fiction writers
• Black conservatism in the United States
• California Constitutionalists
• California Democrats
• California Republicans
• Catholics from California
• Catholics from Louisiana
• Catholics from Texas
• Female candidates for Vice President of the United States
• John Birch Society members
• People from Maurice, Louisiana
• Reform Party of the United States of America vice presidential nominees
• Roman Catholic activists

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles with hCards
• People appearing on C-SPAN