Politician and voting rights organizer Stacey Abrams won the inaugural ‘Social Justice Impact‘ award during the 2021 NAACP Awards, hosted by Anthony Anderson, on Saturday.
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The Georgia political leader was virtually announced by her friend, former First Lady Michelle Obama, who recognized Abrams ability to highlight how “organizing on the ground is the best way to crack the ceiling.”
Obama continued, “What impresses me most about Stacey is that we all know after her gubernatorial race in 2018, she would have been well within her rights to throw her hands up and walk away from politics, but she did the opposite…she doubled down.”
Abrams was recognized for her work in destroying voter suppression in the state of Georgia and beyond.
“Thank you to the NAACP for honoring me with first social justice impact award,” she said during her acceptance speech.
The politician reflected on life lessons from her parents, sharing that they “taught me and my five siblings that having nothing is no excuse for doing nothing,” as she accepted the honor.
She continued, by thanking activists and organizers of the past, present, and future, who “use their hands and too often their lives,” and “never let circumstances stop them from fighting.”
Read More: Stacey Abrams nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for voting rights work
Abrams’ triumphant work resulted in historic wins during the 2020 presidential election in the Peach State. The leader’s organization, along with other groups on the ground, helped to flip the southern state, giving President Joe Biden a win. Georgia’s GOP has since moved to implement controversial laws to limit voting in the future.
theGrio previously reported that Abrams called out the political party headed by Governor Brian Kemp for the legislation and criticized it as “racist” and “a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”
“And so, instead of celebrating better access and more participation, their response is to try to eliminate access to voting for primary communities of color. And there’s a direct correlation between the usage of drop boxes, the usage of in-person early voting, especially on Sundays, and the use of vote by mail and a direct increase in the number of people of color voting,” Abrams said according to the report.
Her work, which also resulted in wins for Georgia Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock during the Senate runoff elections, is not finished. According to theGrio, as the April cover star for Marie Claire magazine, Abrams shared she does not feel like she has won against voter suppression.
When she was asked directly if she feels like she’s won, her answer is simply, “no.”
She continued, “because there’s nothing permanent about the change that we’re making until people believe it’s a change they should defend and maintain. And so every election, every fight, you’ve got to remind people that they have the capacity to win, and you have to do it anew.”
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