America’s first black female governor? Stacey Abrams: ‘You don’t tell yourself no’ | The Guardian

[dropcap]For[/dropcap] Stacey Abrams to become the first black female governor – and in Georgia, no less – would take a miracle. Then again, according to the politics of convention, it already took one for her to get this far.

“We have to be hopeful enough and courageous enough to believe in the unexpected,” said LaTosha Brown, cofounder of Black Voters Matter, at Abrams’ primary victory party Tuesday night at a hotel ballroom in downtown Atlanta. Abrams easily defeated her fellow former Georgia state legislator, Stacey Evans. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″]

Already Abrams has made history, becoming the state’s first black nominee for governor and the first black female major party nominee for the job in America.

She will go on to face the victor of the state’s Republican runoff election in July. In a state that hasn’t seen a Democratic governor elected since 1998, she’ll be fighting uphill battle.

But when Abrams took the stage Tuesday, before throngs of volunteers and a large group of schoolchildren who had gathered, as one chaperone put it, “to come see history being made”, her emphasis was less on her own barrier-breaking than on how far the state had come.

“We are writing the next chapter of Georgia’s future where no one is unseen, no one is unheard and no one is uninspired,” she said in her opening remarks.

---