This week's heroes...

I hope everyone is safe during this time. This week feels quite dark compared to the optimism I was feeling as we started 2021. After a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol this week, resulting in the death of five people, I’m finding it hard to find the words to share with this group.

But in the midst of these awful events, I remained in awe of the organizers and volunteers that hustled in Georgia to flip the senate and elect the state’s first African American Senator and first Jewish Senator – led by the remarkable Stacy Abrams. Their stories have been somewhat overshadowed this week – and I wanted to give them a voice today.

Starting of course with Abrams – a Spellman alumni who served in Georgia’s House of Representatives for ten years, and was the Democratic nominee in the 2018 Georgia election. In 2018, she lost to Brian Kemp, with accusations that Kemp engaged in voter suppression. She went on to found Fair Fight – a voting rights organization focused on preserving the right to vote for all Georgians. At the time, many questioned her decision, wondering whether it would be better for her to focus on the Senate race, or even a potential Presidential run. But Abrams maintained that she could turn Georgia blue, with the help of a committed coalition of grassroots organizers, door-knockers, volunteers, and outreach groups.

“History is not written of the ones who stand frozen by timidity, who embrace mediocrity and tread the road well-traveled. The world is not reworked by those who hide their hands, lest they make a mistake. It is built by those who show up and dig deep and dream wildly fantastic dream. It is built by the bold.”

- From her 2005 speech at the Truman Scholars Leadership Week (full speech here: https://www.truman.gov/stacey-abrams-2005-TSLW-speech)

Raphael Gamaliel Warnock will be the first African American to represent Georgia in the Senate, when he is sworn in later this month. Warnock is a longtime pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. King was a pastor for 8 years before his assassination. Similar to Abrams, he has been focused on ensuring the rights of Georgians to vote, through his work with the New Georgia Project. Months ago, I heard about Warnock’s run through the incredible women in the WNBA – who appeared on national TV wearing T-shirts saying “Vote Warnock” and used their platform to help recruit poll workers and increase voter turnout more broadly.

“The other day, because this is America, the 82 year old hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator…So I come before you tonight as a man who knows that the improbable journey that led me to this place, in this historic moment in America, could only happen here. We were told that we couldn't win this election, but tonight, we proved that with hope, hard work, and the people by our side, anything is possible.

- From his victory speech this week

Jon Ossoff is the youngest Senator since Joe Biden to be elected to the U.S. Senate. An investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker, Ossoff was born in Atlanta and interned for the great John Lewis while in high school. Ossoff was in the spotlight before the general election in November, where clips of him debating his challenger, David Perdue, made the social media rounds. It would be their last debate – Perdue skipped the one right before November 3, and Ossoff debated an empty lectern last month.

“Hope, decency, and unity are not mere catchwords.”

This week, we celebrate these leaders, and the very long list of organizers that helped them succeed this week. Onwards.

-Reshma