Stacey Abrams Biography
Who Is Stacey Abrams?
Politician, lawyer, creator and activist Stacey Abrams served within the Georgia House of Representatives from 2006-2017. She grew to become the primary lady to steer both social gathering within the Georgia General Assembly in 2010, occupying the function for her final seven years in workplace. Following an unsuccessful run for Georgia governor in 2018, she based Fair Fight, a company that helped register no less than 800,000 new voters in Georgia forward of the 2020 basic election. In addition to her political profession, she’s additionally printed eight romantic suspense novels beneath the pen title Selena Montgomery.
Early Life and Education
Born on December 9, 1973, in Madison, Wisconsin, Stacey Yvonne Abrams is the second oldest of Carolyn and Robert Abrams’ six kids: Andrea (born in 1970), Leslie (1974), Richard (1977), Walter (1979) and Jeanine (1982). Her mother and father — who met whereas working collectively as teen lifeguards at a racially segregated Hattiesburg, Mississippi swimming pool on the peak of the civil rights motion — lived in Madison briefly in order that Carolyn may earn a grasp’s diploma in library science from the University of Wisconsin. However, the couple raised Abrams in Gulfport, Mississippi, the place she lived by means of center faculty till the household, in 1989, moved to Atlanta, Georgia, the place Carolyn and Robert attended Emory University to pursue graduate research in divinity and change into United Methodist ministers.
Abrams graduated as the primary Black valedictorian from Avondale High School in DeKalb County, Georgia, earlier than incomes a magna cum laude undergraduate diploma in interdisciplinary research (political science, economics and sociology) with a minor in theater from Atlanta’s traditionally Black girls’s faculty, Spelman. She later graduated from the LBJ School of Public Affairs on the University of Texas at Austin with a Master of Public Affairs in public coverage and acquired her J.D. from Yale Law School.
Early Career
At 17 years outdated, Abrams started her political profession as a speechwriter when a congressional marketing campaign committee grew to become impressed with edits she made whereas typing for them. After Maynard Jackson — Atlanta’s first Black mayor, with whom Abrams had challenged over points regarding social justice throughout a televised 1992 city corridor at Spelman — created an Office of Youth Services in 1993, he employed her as the one undergrad faculty pupil on workers.
Upon graduating together with her Yale regulation diploma, Abrams started working as a tax legal professional at Atlanta’s Sutherland Asbill & Brennan regulation agency, the place she centered on tax exemptions, healthcare, and public finance. By the time Abrams turned 29, Mayor Shirley Franklin appointed her as Atlanta’s deputy metropolis legal professional.
Georgia House of Representatives
In 2006, Abrams was elected as a Georgia state consultant, and inside 4 years, she grew to become the House Minority Leader. After ascending to the best state legislative function in 2010, Abrams earned the excellence of changing into the primary lady to steer both social gathering within the Georgia General Assembly, as properly the primary African American to steer within the House of Representatives.
During her 11 years within the Georgia House (seven as Democratic chief), Abrams served on the Appropriations, Ethics, Judiciary Non-Civil, Rules, and Ways & Means committees. As Georgia’s then-top-ranking Democrat, she traveled to and met with leaders in South Korea, Israel and Taiwan, and her worldwide coverage journey included Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.
Georgia Gubernatorial Run
After leaving her state consultant place, Abrams launched a 2018 run for governor of Georgia, changing into the primary Black lady to earn a significant social gathering’s gubernatorial nomination within the United States. Despite profitable extra votes than any Democratic candidate within the state’s historical past (together with former President Barack Obama), she misplaced to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp by fewer than two share factors and simply over 50,000 votes of the greater than 4 million solid.
The election finally grew to become a research in alleged voter suppression efforts. Aside from operating within the race, Kemp’s workplace oversaw the election, slicing almost 700,000 names from the rolls within the two years resulting in the election, and greater than 200 polling locations have been closed, primarily in poor and minority neighborhoods, based on The Washington Post. Abrams additional claimed that hundreds of ballots have been left uncounted.
Ten days after the election, Abrams ended her bid for governor however selected to not concede to Kemp, citing her perception that voters have been disenfranchised. “Let’s be clear: This isn’t a speech of concession,” she said in a speech from her campaign headquarters, according to the Associated Press. “Because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.” In the same address, Abrams also announced she intended to file a federal lawsuit to challenge the way Georgia’s elections are run.
Voter Registration Efforts
Following her election loss, Abrams, in 2018, founded Fair Fight, a voter protection and education organization, which aims to “promote honest elections in Georgia and across the nation, encourage voter participation in elections, and educate voters about elections and their voting rights.” Through her efforts, she helped register no less than 800,000 new voters in Georgia forward of the 2020 basic election, per NPR, and consequently, Democrat Joe Biden gained the state’s electoral votes for President in 2020. (Democrats Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Osoff additionally flipped Georgia’s two Republican-held Senate seats in a January 2021 particular runoff race.)
Abrams had beforehand based the New Georgia Project, which submitted greater than 200,000 registrations from voters of colour between 2014 and 2016. “I started my voting rights activism at Spelman College. I started a voter-registration drive even before I was old enough to vote,” she instructed college students earlier than an early February 2020 city corridor assembly in Miami, per The Washington Post. “I was probably the only person who turned 18 in college and got excited to go register and nothing else. But for me, the issue of voter registration is the beginning of the conversation because it is a conversation about power.”
Abrams additionally helped create the Southern Economic Advancement Project (SEAP), which goals for equality of alternative, and Fair Count, which seeks to get communities of colour, rural populations and different marginalized teams counted within the 2020 Census.
Other Projects and Books
Abrams co-founded two companies: Nourish, Inc., a bottled-water firm with a deal with infants and toddlers, in addition to NOW Account, a monetary providers agency that helps small companies develop. The concept for the latter sprung from her expertise together with her beverage firm, which couldn’t afford to attend for fee after filling orders, per Time.
Under the pen title Selena Montgomery, Abrams has written eight romantic suspense novels: Rules of Engagement, The Art of Desire, Power of Persuasion, Never Tell, Hidden Sins, Secrets and Lies, Reckless, and Deception. She’s additionally printed her personal political non-fiction books, 2019’s Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change and 2020’s Our Time Is Now.
