Alfie Scholars gives a Civility Leader Shout-Out to Ms. Stacey Abrams

Alfie Scholars gives a Civility Leader Shout-Out to Ms. Stacey Abrams for turning the adversity of a narrow defeat in her gubernatorial race into a personal mission to end voter suppression.

In 2018 Stacey Abrams gained national attention when she ran for governor of Georgia. She lost to then Secretary of State Brian Kemp, but the loss spurred her to fight for Georgians’ right to vote. Abrams has become perhaps the nation’s leading voice on voting rights. Her work has been instrumental in tearing down barriers for Georgia and voters across the country. Fighting for a better democracy has become her mission.

“After 2018, Stacey did not get dejected, demoralized, or decide to sit it out. She went straight to work to tear down barriers to the ballot, and build power for overlooked communities – both in Georgia and around the country,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “She helped create the infrastructure [and] multi-racial coalitions.”

Abrams’s two organizations, New Georgia Project, a non-partisan group dedicated to broadening the electorate by registering voters, and Fair Fight, an organization that helped train voter-protection teams in states across the country, are credited with registering a staggering 800,000 new voters. A Harry S. Truman Scholar, Abrams studied public policy at the University of Texas at Austin. In college, Stacey worked in the Atlanta mayor’s office and was a community organizer passionate about issues such as the environment and civil rights. Stacey Abrams also served in the Georgia House of Representatives. And in 2019, Abrams became the first African-American woman to deliver a response to the State of the Union address.

In the preface to her New York Times best-seller, Lead From the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change, Abrams writes, “I refused to be gaslighted into throwing away my power, diminishing my voice.”

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Abrams shared, “I’ve learned that failure is not permanent. My responsibility is to not let failure dissuade me from my core obligations. Sometimes we pursue a challenge thinking it is about our victory, but we don’t know the true purpose until later. Not becoming governor of one state gave me the opportunity to launch a national network in 20 states [to fight for fair elections]. We are helping reform democracy in places where it was broken and battered.” She continues, “I may not have won the office, but what I was able to earn for the causes I serve has been extraordinary, and beyond anything I could have imagined. Apparently, I’m a really good loser.”