About Stacey Abrams

When she's not protecting democracy, she's also a novelist.

By Michelle Darrisaw and Samantha Vincenty

Stacey Abrams in Conversation with Janelle Monáe

by Harper's BAZAAR US

Former House of Representatives Minority Leader Stacey Abrams has earned wide praise for her
successful voter rights efforts in Georgia, following her 2018 midterm governor race.

In the past decade, the Fair Fight founder has worked to register 800,000 new Georgia voters through
her two anti voter-suppression groups.

Following Joe Biden's surge in Georgia, the Our Time Is Now author tweeted, "my heart is full." Here's
what else to know about the lawyer, political leader, and author of novels and political books.

In 2018, just 55,000 votes prevented Stacey Abrams from becoming the first Black woman governor of
Georgia. When the election narrowly went to then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, it reignited debate
about how a long history of voter suppression in Georgia may have shaped the outcome. Given Abrams'
proven organizing skills and her firsthand knowledge of the fact that every single vote counts, it should
come as no surprise that the politician, lawyer, author, and organizer managed to help register at least
800,000 new voters in Georgia for the 2020 election. But that doesn't make the results of her years-long
effort any less impressive.

As ballots in the state were still being counted in the days following November 3, Democratic voters,
famous fans like Mark Ruffalo, and political pundits alike knew who to thank for candidate Joe Biden's
surge and two runoff Senate elections: Abrams. The organizer graciously thanked those who "deserve
credit for 10yrs to new Georgia" on Twitter on November 6, including Georgia Rep. and civil rights leader
John Lewis, who died in July 2020. "My heart is full," she wrote.

"Public service has been calling for me as long as I can remember. Whether in elected office or as an
active citizen, I believe we are required to find solutions to our most intractable problems, and to use
our skills to expand opportunity for all," Abrams said in an April 2019 video announcing that she would
not run for Senate.

She added then: "But let's be clear, I will do everything in my power to ensure Georgia elects a
Democrat to the United States Senate in 2020." Through years of hard work through Fair Fight, the voter
protection and education organization Abrams founded in 2018, and her previous registration effort the
New Georgia Project, she's primed to do just that.
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Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia House minority leader who lost a razor-thin race for governor in
2018, voted on Thursday (Oct. 15), driving her ballot to a local drop box.

Jeanine Abrams McLean, a former biologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now
helps her sister run the census advocacy group Fair Count, also took advantage of Georgia’s early voting,
wearing her “Come to Your Census” T-shirt to her polling place in Tucker.

In an interview with Religion News Service, Stacey Abrams called it a coincidence that the siblings had
cast their votes on the same day. The family’s pastor, the Rev. Ralph Thompson, said voting is ingrained
in the Abramses. “The family is just a tight-knit cadre of people who understand that it is incumbent
upon them to vote and to make a difference,” he said.

Thompson, whose predominantly Black Columbia Drive United Methodist Church in Decatur, Georgia,
has a sign outside that says “Vote Early,” said the entire family has long viewed voting as “a sacred civil
duty.”