EPISODE #92 – On this Wonderful Women Wednesday, we continue to acknowledge Women’s History Month and since today is the last day, I want to honor the 2021 NAACP Image Award Recipient of the first Social Justice Impact Award - Stacey Abrams. Most people first heard of Stacey when she ran to be the first black woman governor in the history of the United States, representing the State of Georgia. Through her experience in this race, voter suppression was exposed and her launching of Fair Fight Action was born. I want to talk about her background and how it all began. Stacey is the second of six siblings (one of her sisters is U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner). She was born to Robert and Carolyn Abrams in Madison, Wisconsin, and raised in Gulfport, Mississippi. The family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where her parents pursued graduate degrees at Emory Universityand later became Methodist Ministers. She attended Avondale High School in DeKalb County, Georgia, graduating as valedictorian, and where she was selected for a Telluride Association Summer Program. While in high school, she was hired as a typist for a congressional campaign, and at age 17, she was hired as a speechwriter based on the edits she had made while typing. In 1995, Stacey earned a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies (political science, economics, and sociology) from Spelman College, magna cum laude. While in college, she worked in the youth services department in the office of Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson. She later interned at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As a freshman in 1992, Stacey took part in a protest on the steps of the Georgia Capitol, during which she joined in burning the state flag. At that time, Georgia's state flag incorporated the Confederate battle flag, which had been added to the state flag in 1956 as an anti-civil rights movement action.The flag was designed by Southern Democrat John Sammons Bell, an attorney and chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia who was an outspoken supporter of segregation. 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. In 1999, she earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. DID YOU KNOW THAT STACEY ALSO IS A ROMANCE NOVEL AUTHOR UNDER THE NAME SELENA MONTGOMERY? WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY? LINKS BELOW FOR: APPLE, GOOGLE, PANDORA, AND SPOTIFY.
Sources: Fair Fight - https://fairfight.com/about-stacey-abrams/, Amazon.com, 2021 NAACP Image Awards