Stacey Abrams
Stacey Yvonne Abrams (/ˈeɪbrəmz/;[1] born December 9, 1973) is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017.[2] A member of the Democratic Party, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018.[3] Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, when Joe Biden narrowly won the state, and in Georgia's 2020–21 regularly scheduled and special U.S. Senate elections, which gave Democrats control of the Senate.[4][5][6]
Stacey Abrams
84th district (2007–2013)
89th district (2013–2017)
Leslie Abrams Gardner (sister)
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
Abrams was the Democratic nominee in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, becoming the first African-American female major-party gubernatorial nominee in the United States.[7] She narrowly lost the election to Republican candidate Brian Kemp, but refused to concede, accusing Kemp of engaging in voter suppression as Georgia Secretary of State.[8][9] News outlets and political science experts have been unable to determine whether voter suppression affected its result.[10][11] In February 2019, Abrams became the first African-American woman to deliver a response to the State of the Union address. She was the Democratic nominee in the 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election, and lost again to Kemp, this time by a much larger margin; she conceded on the night of the election.[12]
Abrams is an author of both fiction and nonfiction. Her nonfiction books, Our Time Is Now and Lead from the Outside, were New York Times best sellers. Abrams wrote eight fiction books under the pen name Selena Montgomery before 2021. While Justice Sleeps was released on May 11, 2021, under her real name. Abrams also wrote a children's book, Stacey's Extraordinary Words, released in December 2021.
Early life and education
The second of six siblings, Abrams was born to Robert and Carolyn Abrams in Madison, Wisconsin, and raised in Gulfport, Mississippi where her father was employed in a shipyard and her mother was a librarian.[13][14][15] In 1989, the family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where her parents pursued graduate divinity degrees at Emory University.[16][17] They became Methodist ministers and later returned to Mississippi with their three youngest children while Abrams and two other siblings remained in Atlanta.[16][18][19] She attended Avondale High School, graduating as valedictorian in 1991.[20] In 1990, she was selected for the Telluride Association Summer Program.[21] At 17, while still in high school, she was hired as a typist for a congressional campaign and then as a speechwriter based on the improvements she made to a campaign speech.[22]
In 1995, Abrams earned a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies (political science, economics, and sociology) from Spelman College, magna cum laude.[2] While in college, she worked in the youth services department in the office of Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson.[22] She later interned at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.[22] As a freshman in 1992, Abrams took part in a protest on the steps of the Georgia Capitol, during which she joined in burning the Georgia state flag which, at the time, incorporated the Confederate battle flag. It had been added to the state flag in 1956 as an anti-civil rights movement action.[23][24][25]
As a Harry S. Truman Scholar, Abrams studied public policy at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs, where she earned a Master of Public Affairs degree in 1998. Afterward, she earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.[2]
Writing career
Outside of politics, Abrams has found success as a fiction writer. Until 2021, she published her works under the pen name Selena Montgomery. She claims to have sold more than 100,000 copies of her novels.[39] She wrote her first novel during her third year at Yale Law School and published her most recent book in 2009.[122] Her legal thriller While Justice Sleeps was published (under her own name) in May 2021.[123] That novel is being produced as a television series by Working Title Films, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures.[124][125] Her writing career and her political career connect through the fundraising event that she inspired, Romancing the Runoff, where romance authors raised funds for voting rights in Georgia.[126]
Two of her nonfiction works, Our Time is Now and Lead from the Outside, were New York Times Best Sellers.[127]
Abrams has published articles on public policy, taxation, and nonprofit organizations.[128] She is the author of Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change (published by Henry Holt & Co. in April 2018),[129] and Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America (published by Henry Holt & Co. in June 2020).[130]
Honors and awards
In 2012, Abrams received the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award from the Kennedy Library and Harvard University's Institute of Politics, which honors an elected official under 40 whose work demonstrates the impact of elective public service as a way to address public challenges.[131] In 2014 Governing Magazine named her a Public Official of the Year, an award that recognizes state and local official for outstanding accomplishments.[132] Abrams was recognized as one of "12 Rising Legislators to Watch" by the same publication in 2012[133] and one of the "100 Most Influential Georgians" by Georgia Trend for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.[134]
EMILY's List recognized Abrams as the inaugural recipient of the Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award in 2014.[135] She was selected as an Aspen Rodel Fellow[136] and a Hunt-Kean Fellow.[137] In 2014, Abrams was named 11th most influential African American aged 25 to 45 by The Root, rising to first place in 2019.[138][139] Abrams was named Legislator of the Year by the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals, Public Servant of the Year by the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Outstanding Public Service by the Latin American Association, Champion for Georgia Cities by the Georgia Municipal Association, and Legislator of the Year by the DeKalb County Chamber of Commerce.[140]
Abrams received the Georgia Legislative Service Award from the Association County Commissioners Georgia, the Democratic Legislator of the Year from the Young Democrats of Georgia and Red Clay Democrats, and an Environmental Leader Award from the Georgia Conservation Voters.[140] She is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations,[141] a Next Generation Fellow of the American Assembly,[142] an American Marshall Memorial Fellow,[142] a Salzburg Seminar–Freeman Fellow on U.S.-East Asian Relations,[143] and a Yukos Fellow for U.S.–Russian Relations.[143]
Abrams received the Stevens Award for Outstanding Legal Contributions and the Elmer Staats Award for Public Service, both national honors presented by the Harry S. Truman Foundation.[144][145] She was also a 1994 Harry S. Truman Scholar.[146]
In 2001, Ebony magazine named Abrams one of "30 Leaders of the Future".[147] In 2004 she was named to Georgia Trend's "40 Under 40" list,[148] and the Atlanta Business Chronicle named Abrams to its "Top 50 Under 40" list. In 2006 she was named a Georgia Rising Star by Atlanta Magazine and by Law & Politics Magazine.[149]
Abrams received a single vote, from Kathleen Rice, in the 2019 election for Speaker of the U.S. House.[150]
In 2019, Abrams received the Distinguished Public Service Award from the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs, where she obtained her Master's of Public Affairs in 1998. The award is the highest honor bestowed upon alumni of the school, with recipients selected by their fellow alumni. The award reflects her "remarkable leadership on behalf of her constituents as well as citizens all over this country", according to Dean Angela Evans.[151]
For her nonviolent campaign to get out the vote, Abrams has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.[152] In 2021, she was included in the Time 100, Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[153]
Abrams was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance in 2021 for her work on an election-themed special episode of Black-ish.[154] She lost at the 73rd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards to Maya Rudolph of Big Mouth.[155]
Personal life
Abrams is the second of six children born to Reverend Carolyn and Reverend Robert Abrams, originally of Mississippi.[18] Her siblings include Andrea Abrams, U.S. district judge Leslie Abrams Gardner, Richard Abrams, Walter Abrams, and Jeanine Abrams McLean.[172][173]
In April 2018, Abrams wrote an op-ed for Fortune revealing that she owed $54,000 in federal back taxes and held $174,000 in credit card and student loan debt.[174] She was repaying the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) incrementally on a payment plan after deferring her 2015 and 2016 taxes, which she stated was necessary to help with her family's medical bills. During the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, she donated $50,000 to her own campaign.[175][176] In 2019, she completed payment of her back taxes to the IRS in addition to other outstanding credit card and student loan debt reported during the gubernatorial campaign.[177]
Romance novels (as Selena Montgomery):[179]