Stacey Abrams is set to spend 2022 back in the spotlight.
The 48-year-old announced earlier this month that she will once again run for governor of Georgia. Before that, she’ll be promoting her first children’s book, “Stacey’s Extraordinary Words.”
Based on Abrams’ own childhood experiences, the book follows a little girl named Stacey as she prepares for a spelling bee while being bullied by a classmate named Jake. Stacey ultimately loses the spelling bee and learns valuable lessons in the process.
“I think it’s important for children’s books to let us know it doesn’t quite work out that way. But that doesn’t diminish the importance of studying,” Abrams told Essence. “It doesn’t diminish the love of the word, and it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try for the things you want, or that you shouldn’t defend the people around you. It just means that you might have to do it again. And again. There is victory in your persistence.”
In the book, Stacey interacts with an elementary school teacher who recognizes her talents and sets her toward the path to success. The character is inspired by Abrams’ real-life teacher, Mrs. Blakeslee.
“It’s been 40 years, and no, I’ve not seen Mrs. Blakeslee since elementary school, but I would tell her thank you,” Abrams said. “I appreciate so much how kind she was to me. [In elementary school] I’d been promoted and skipped a grade, and when you’re six you don’t really understand what that means.”
“All I knew is that I was being moved from a class that was somewhat familiar to a class that was completely unfamiliar around kids I didn’t know.”
Abrams became the first Black woman in America to become a gubernatorial nominee. She also made waves for representing a political shift in a historically right-leaning southern state by losing to Brian Kemp by a slim margin of 55,000, prompting calls of potential voter suppression.
Her Republican opponents are attempting to associate her unwillingness to immediately concede that election with former President Donald Trump’s insistence that his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden was fixed, according to Politico.
“Concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede,” Abrams told her supporters shortly after the 2018 election. “But my assessment is that the law currently allows no further viable remedy.”
Abrams waited a week after Election Day to recognize Kemp as the victor while waiting for all the votes to come in.
“Democrats attack Trump and Republicans for believing these conspiracies, believing what they call the ‘Big Lie.’ But the original Big Lie proponent was Stacey Abrams,” Brian Robinson, a Republican strategist from Georgia, told Politico. “She was ahead of her time, as she is on so many things.”
“Stacey’s Extraordinary Words” hits bookshelves Tuesday.
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