Like many people, after seeing the news of Keisha Lance Bottoms’ historic victory, I couldn’t help but think about Stacey Abrams and her 2018 campaign for governor. Eight Black women took center stage eight years after Abrams built a campaign Georgia never imagined possible. Denied victory by Jim Crow’s protege, Abrams’ historic run set the stage for an entire slate of Black women elected to state leadership. The conversations and think pieces that blasted people for failing to support a Black woman at the highest levels of politics forced deep conversations about who we elect and why.
Tuesday night’s wins reflect the grit and effort of each campaign and the voters who showed up to make a difference. It belongs to the organizers who never gave up hope that Georgia could once again return to the people. And in many ways, Tuesday’s wins wouldn’t have been possible without the foundation Abrams built and the ecosystem that grew around her 2018 campaign. The 2018 landscape set the tone for 2026’s wins. It sharpened our analysis of authoritarian threats and made us aware of the false god of bipartisanship.
The obstacles Georgia voters faced in 2018 and the fierce determination in her 2018 election acknowledgment speech focused our attention on the conditions we needed to win. It also made it clear that we didn’t have to accept bad-faith actions and rules of decorum just to uphold failed institutions. In acknowledging the end of the election while also refusing to concede, Abrams stirred the collective conscience of not just the state but the entire country.
“I implore each of you to not give in to that anger or apathy but instead turn to action. Because the antidote to injustice is progress,” she said. “The cure to this malpractice is a fight for fairness in every election held – in every law passed – in every decision made.”
She challenged all of us not to look away and simply accept the outcome of years of disenfranchisement and disinvestment. Her words were a soothing balm on an open wound raw from stark injustice. Well before Donald Trump threw his tantrum about rigging Georgia’s election, Brian Kemp stacked the deck in his favor at the expense of voters and process.
The focused pro-democracy message delivered after 2018 drove the work many of us carried into 2019. It gave us the language and watchful eye we needed in 2020 and 2021, as election denialism rose. She gave us a roadmap for what it means to keep building beyond single electoral wins. For this journalist, it lit a fire and determination to understand how we show up for the people we need to serve and what shifts we need to make to build better. Like many people, the 2018 race and the fight to protect voting rights and democracy opened my eyes to the intersections between various issues and the franchise itself.
Source: 8 Years After Stacey Abrams Dared to Dream, Black Women Made History
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