Biography
Early Life
Stacey Abrams was born in Madison, Wisconsin. Her parents greatly valued education. They were active in church and the Civil Rights Movement. Her father was beaten and jailed and her mother was removed from buses for trying to sit in the front. While Abrams was still a child, the family moved to Gulfport, Mississippi, where she grew up. Abrams was a choir member and usher in church.
The family moved to Atlanta during Abrams’ high school years. In Atlanta, both parents attended Candler School of Theology at Emory University and became ordained Methodist ministers. Her parents stressed the value of service to others and the importance of church. Abrams was valedictorian of her high school class in 1991.
Education
Abrams attended Spelman College in Atlanta. There she led a protest in 1992 regarding the not-guilty verdict after Rodney King’s beating. She co-founded Students for African American Empowerment. She graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Political Science, Economics, and Sociology. She earned a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. After that she earned a Law Degree at Yale University.
Abrams advocated for the removal of Confederate symbols, including the flag, from places of honor. She stated that the Stone Mountain Confederate monument should be removed.
Political Activism, Voter Rights and Registration
Abrams was appointed the Deputy City Attorney of Atlanta. Abrams was elected to the 89th House District of the Georgia State House of Representatives in 2006. By 2010, she became the first African American House Minority Leader in Georgia. She is the first woman to lead either party in Georgia’s General Assembly. She served on the Appropriations, Ethics, Judiciary Non-Civil, Rules, and Ways and Means committees in the State House. Abrams was known for bipartisanship. She focused on educational and economic security, mental health and illness, addiction, criminal justice reform, and expanded Medicaid. She was the Minority Leader for seven of her 11 years in the Georgia House of Representatives.
Abrams created the nonprofit The New Georgia Project in 2013, which expanded voter registration by about 86,000 new voters. Many were voters of color.
In 2018, Abrams became the first African American woman in Georgia to win the Democratic nomination for governor from a major party. She ran against Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Although she lost by 55,000 votes, she became known nationally. Her voter registration work is credited with being a main reason for Democratic wins in the 2020 Presidential and U.S. Senate races in Georgia. Abrams founded the nonprofit Fair Fight in 2018 to address voter suppression concerns. She also advocated for expanded investments in public education and health care access for Georgians as well as gun control and abortion care rights.
Abrams founded The Southern Economic Advancement Project and a media production company, Sage Works, Inc. She has written books for adults on making change as well as a children’s book. She is a board member of the National Democratic Institute.
Religious Activism
Abrams grew up in a family whose public service grew out of their faith and religious commitments. As children she and her siblings worked with their parents in soup kitchens. They also boycotted a Shell gas station because its owner had corporate connections to Apartheid in South Africa. Abrams stated, “My faith is central to the work that I do, in that I not only hold Christian values, but my faith tradition as a Methodist tells me that the most profound demonstration of our faith is service.” Abrams founded Fair Count in 2019 to help build power in under-represented communities and strengthen faith organizations. It provided a faith app to congregations to help churches share information about the census, church information, and redistricting maps.
Organizational Activism
Abrams was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has been a Fellow in numerous organizations, including a Next Generation Fellow of the American Assembly at Columbia University on U.S. Global Policy and also the Future of International Institutions. She received the Stevens Award for Outstanding Legal Contributions and the Elmer Staats Award for Public Service. Both are national honors presented by the Harry S. Truman Foundation. She is also a 1994 Harry S. Truman Scholar.
Academia and Activism
In April 2023, Abrams became the first Ronald W. Walters Endowed Chair for Race and Black Politics at Howard University in Washington, District of Columbia. This post offers leadership in university-wide research on political issues that affect Black Americans. Abrams was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.
