| Barbara Bush | |
| Birth Name: | Barbara Pierce Bush |
| Birth Date: | 25 November 1981 |
| Birth Place: | Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
| Alma Mater: | Yale University (BA) Harvard University (MPA) |
| Occupation: | Health care activist |
| Years Active: | 2000–present |
| Boards: | Global Health Corps |
| Party: | Independent |
| Children: | 2 |
| Family: | Bush family |
Barbara Pierce Bush (born November 25, 1981) is an American activist. She co-founded and is the chair of the board of the nonprofit organization Global Health Corps.[1] She and her fraternal twin sister, Jenna, are the daughters of the forty-third U.S. president, George W. Bush, and former first lady, Laura Bush. She is also a granddaughter of former president George H. W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush, after whom she is named.
Barbara Pierce Bush was born on November 25, 1981 at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.[2] When the family lived in the Preston Hollow section of Dallas, she and her twin sister, Jenna, attended Preston Hollow Elementary School; Laura Bush served on Preston Hollow's Parent-Teacher Association at that time.[3] Later, Barbara and Jenna attended The Hockaday School in Dallas. When her father became Governor of Texas in 1994, Barbara attended St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Austin, Texas. She began Austin High School in 1996, graduating with the class of 2000.[4] Barbara graduated from Yale University with a BA in Humanities and Harvard Kennedy School with a Master in Public Administration as a fellow with the Center for Public Leadership. While at Yale, she joined Kappa Alpha Theta.
She worked for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, a subsidiary of the Smithsonian Institution.[5] [6] Previously, she had been working with AIDS patients in Africa: Tanzania, South Africa, and Botswana, among other places, through a program sponsored by the Houston-based Baylor College of Medicine's International Pediatrics AIDS Initiative.[7] [8] [9] [10] Her interest in the issue began when she went to Africa with her parents to launch President Bush's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).[11]
Barbara is the co-founder and president of a public health-focused nonprofit, Global Health Corps.[12] Global Health Corps provides opportunities for young professionals from diverse backgrounds to work on the front lines of the fight for global health equity.[13] In 2009, Global Health Corps won a Draper Richards Foundation Fellowship, and Bush was made a 2009 Echoing Green fellow for her work with Global Health Corps.[14] [15] Bush was also chosen as one of the 14 speakers selected from an applicant pool of 1,500 to speak at the TEDx Brooklyn event in December 2010, where she spoke about Global Health Corps.[16]
In 2011, Bush released a video with the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, calling on New York State to legalize same-sex marriage.[17] [18] "I am Barbara Bush, and I am a New Yorker for marriage equality," she said in the brief message, sponsored by an advocacy group. "New York is about fairness and equality. And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love.'"[18] Bush joined other children of prominent Republican politicians—including Meghan McCain and Mary Cheney—in endorsing gay marriage.[18]
Bush's graduation from Yale in May 2004 was given heavy media coverage. She and Jenna made several media appearances that summer prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election, including giving a speech to the Republican Convention on August 31.[19] She and Jenna took turns traveling to swing states with their father and also gave a seven-page interview and photo shoot in Vogue.[20] [21] Jenna later confirmed that Barbara and Jenna also developed a friendship with John Kerry's daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa, who campaigned on behalf of their father, Kerry.[22] Bush joined her mother on diplomatic trips to Liberia in January 2006 to attend the inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf[23] and to Vatican City to meet with Pope Benedict XVI in February 2006.
Unlike most of her relatives (but like her twin sister Jenna), Bush is not a member of the Republican Party. In 2010, Bush and her sister told People that they preferred not to identify with any political party, stating, "We're both very independent thinkers."[24] [25] [26]
Bush and her sister authored the memoir Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life, published in 2017.
On October 7, 2018, Bush married screenwriter Craig Coyne in a private ceremony at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, with only 20 people attending. It was held then in part so that Bush's grandfather, George H. W. Bush, whose health was on the decline at the time (and would die a month later), could attend.[27] [28] They held an additional wedding reception six months later in April 2019 with 100 guests.[29] Their daughter, Cora, was born in September 2021.[30] Their son Edward Finn, was born on August 4, 2024.[31]