A black woman is doing another first. Former State House leader Stacey Abrams, by virtue of being selected as Georgia Democrats’ nominee for governor, has become the first black woman to be a major party nominee for governor in the USA.
That is not the only trail she is blazing. Her selection also makes her Georgia’s first black nominee for governor, male or female.
She does have her work cut out, running against a Republican in a historically conservative and white state. But she has come this far and we do not see that deterring her. She would take her chances and let the electorates show how ready they are not for change.
Ms. Abrams’s victory, confirmed by The Associated Press, came on the latest 2018 primary night to see Democratic women finding success, as voters in Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas also went to the polls. Among the winners was Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot, who upset Mayor Jim Gray of Lexington in a House primary in Kentucky.
But it was the breakthrough of Ms. Abrams that drew the most notice. A 44-year-old Yale Law School graduate who has mixed a municipal career in Atlanta and statehouse politics with running a small business and writing a series of romance novels under a nom de plume, she is now a central character in the midterm elections and the Democratic Party’s quest to define itself.
In a Facebook post declaring victory Tuesday night, Ms. Abrams acknowledged the general election would be tough and cast herself as the candidate representing “the Georgia of tomorrow.”
Speaking later to a throng of supporters at a downtown Atlanta hotel, Ms. Abrams did not directly invoke her barrier-breaking nomination but held up her candidacy as a sign of the state’s progress.
“We are writing the next chapter of Georgia’s history where no one is unseen, no one is unheard and no one is uninspired,” she said.
Source: HowAfrica