The Evolution of Stacey Abrams

Before Stacey Abrams was a political leader in Georgia, she was born in Madison, Wisconsin and raised in Gulfport, Mississippi. She is the second of six siblings.

Her family moved to Atlanta, which allowed her parents to pursue graduate degrees at Emory University. She got an early foot in politics while working as a speechwriter for a congressional campaign when she was only 17.

After graduating high school, Abrams attended Spelman College and graduated magna cum laude in 1995. While in school she worked for then Atlanta mayor, Maynard Jackson, the first Black mayor in the history of Atlanta.

After graduating from Spelman College and earning a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies, she studied public policy at the University of Texas earning her master’s degree in 1998 and in 1999 she earned a Juris Doctor from the Yale School of Law.

Abrams did not jump straight into politics, like many politicians, she became a lawyer. She worked as a tax attorney at a law firm in Atlanta.

Although Abrams is a well-known politician, she is also a successful writer and up until 2021, she published work under the pen name Selena Montgomery. Her first book was written while she was still in law school at Yale University. Her most recent book, “While Justice Sleeps,” was published in May 2021 and is being adapted for television.

Abrams got started with her political career in 2002 at the age of 29 when she was appointed a deputy city attorney for the City of Atlanta, spawning the birth of her 20-year career working in politics.

Abrams ran for the 89th district of the Georgia House of Representatives and eventually won the primary election getting 51% of the vote. In 2010, she was elected by the Democratic caucus as the minority leader of the Georgia General Assembly. In 2017, after nearly 11 years working in the Georgia General Assembly, she stepped down to focus on her on the 2018 Georgia Gubernatorial race.

Abrams ran against Stacey Evans in the Georgia primary and won the democratic nomination, becoming the first Black woman in the history of the United States to be a major party’s nominee for governor. Her Republican opponent was nominee Brian Kemp, who eventually won the election narrowly.

The legitimacy of the election was questioned by many, including Abrams. Kemp, who was the Georgia secretary of state and was in charge of elections and voter registration during the election, was accused of trying to make Black votes disappear. In his time as secretary of state, Kemp’s office canceled over 1.4 million voter registrations with nearly 700,00 in 2017.

After her loss in the gubernatorial election, Abrams announced the creation of Fair Fight Action, a nonprofit organization that fights against voter suppression and looks to get as many people registered to vote as possible.

In February 2019, Abrams delivered the response to the State of the Union address, becoming the first African-American woman to give the rebuttal to address. She was also the first person to do so while not holding office.

One of the biggest keys to Biden winning the 2020 presidential election was his victory in Georgia. Abrams led the effort to increase minority voters in the state with almost 800,000 new voters registering, most of them being minority voters.

In December 2021, Abrams announced that she’s running it back for governor of Georgia which will most likely be a rematch against Kemp. She is currently the only Democratic candidate running for governor in Georgia.