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Mar 20, 20214 min read

Who is Stacey Abrams?

By: Sneha Bhale


The woman known as “Biden’s secret weapon” who has been credited all over for the Georgia Democratic win has made her mark in the world with her efforts to increase voter turnout and to be an inspiration to every woman out there.


What is Abram’s background?


Ms. Abrams was born in Wisconsin and grew up in Mississippi before her family relocated to the Atlanta suburbs when she was a teenager. She graduated at the top of her high school class, before attending Spelman College, a historically black women’s college. She went on to earn a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Texas at Austin, and a law degree from Yale.


How did she get into politics?


Fresh out of high school at 18 years old, Stacey Abrams spent a long night mapping out her future and saw politics as her destiny. She found her spark in politics and social injustice in the spring of 1992 when 4 police officers were acquitted of the beating of Rodney King, which sparked calls to justice and outrage.


But in present-day at age 47, she is recognized nationally as a New York Times bestselling author but also becoming one of the most successful female politicians in America.


After serving for eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives, seven as Democratic Leader, in 2018, Abrams became the Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia, winning at the time more votes than any other Democrat in the state’s history. Abrams was the first black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a major party in the United States, and she was the first black woman and first Georgian to deliver a Response to the State of the Union.


What has she done regarding voter turnout?


In 2014, one year after the US Supreme Court stripped back the protections in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibited racial discrimination at the ballot box. Due to that, she co-founded the New Georgia Act, a group aimed at registering young voters and people of color.

Furthermore, after witnessing the gross mismanagement of the 2018 election by the Secretary of State’s office, Abrams launched the Fair Fight program in order to ensure every American has a voice in our election system. Fair Fight 2020 was an initiative to fund and train voter protection teams in 20 battleground states. Over the course of her career, Abrams has founded multiple organizations devoted to voting rights, training and hiring young people of color, and tackling social issues at both the state and national levels. In 2019, she launched Fair Count to ensure accuracy in the 2020 Census and greater participation in civic engagement, and the Southern Economic Advancement Project, a public policy initiative to broaden economic power and build equity in the South.


Her work has struck a chord with people all over Georgia, nationally, and even Biden. In fact, he credited his win in Georgia all to one woman- Stacey Abrams. Her efforts on voter registration and turnout in the state also made Joe Biden the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in almost three decades, defeating Donald Trump by less than 12,000 votes. “Let’s hear it for Stacey Abrams. Nobody, nobody in America has done more for the right to vote than Stacey,” Mr. Biden said at a campaign stop in Atlanta on the eve of Tuesday’s vote. “Stacey, you are changing Georgia. You have changed America.”


How has Stacey Abrams overcome challenges she has faced as a woman?


When Abrams announced her campaign for governor, several people told her she couldn’t run until she lost 100 pounds, that she needed to straighten her hair or that she was simply “too dark.”


As a clap back, Abrams said “I acknowledge that people will see something on the outside that tells them a story about who I am. My job is to tell them the whole story,”. She ended off by saying that her job is to believe her own story and not anyone else's

.

She has faced many troubles as a woman, especially with politics in Georgia as her main competitors were men. When asked about women in politics and her own personal experience, Abrams said Yet many women, “particularly minority women, are trained to disqualify ourselves… My belief is I know who I am … and I’m never going to allow my exterior, my phenotype, to determine my capacity,”


And so, undaunted by comments about her appearance or her gender, Abrams is leaving the door open to a future presidential run.


Just recently, Abrams has earned the 100th spot on the 2020 list of the most powerful women in the world for Forbes. She is actively fighting to protect fair and free elections in the U.S. or around the world. Her work is representative of an entire collective, but in a country where a portion of the Voting Rights Act has been dismantled, it is essential work. Women attending political conventions or watching Abrams on television is punctured, time and again, by “Amen” and “Preach” and “You go, girl.” Abrams has shown America that her influence, resilience, and ambition are as strong as ever.


Discussion Questions:

  • Will Stacey Abrams be elected as chairwoman of the DNC?

  • What is next regarding Abrams’s efforts to increase voter turnout?

  • Will Stacey Abrams be the first female president in the US?



Sources Used/Further Reading:




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