Former Georgia State Representative sbd gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams joined students on the campus of Howard University for a post-election discussion to talk about what the future holds for them following the 2024 presidential election. Abrams is the university’s inaugural Ronald W. Walters Endowed Chair for Race and Black Politics.
The event, which was held in Douglass Hall, had only standroom as Abrams used her political expertise and knowledge to help students process their feelings surrounding the election while also incorporating their questions and comments. She helped students contextualize the election by responding to questions about the roles misinformation and secularism played in this election.
Political tactics like the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the ruling that legalized abortion and took almost 50 years to reverse, were also covered by Abrams. With Title IX and other DEI measures presumably the next targets, Abrams cautioned about the multiple attacks from different sources, including litigation, protests, and Supreme Court rulings that might gradually undo equity gains.
“When our right to control our bodies and protect our lives loses out to another’s demand for economic comfort, it’s exhausting and dehumanizing,” said Abrams when discussing the feelings of Black women who wanted to elect Vice President Kamala Harris as the first female president of the United States, bringing up her defeats in Georgia’s 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial races as personal examples.
Abrams discussed other issues in addition to urging students to develop political strategies to oppose new and incoming policies to prepare for a better future.
“This is a generation that has not allowed anybody to tell y’all anything,” Abrams joked. “But that is your superpower: your willingness to shape language and make reality what it should be is extraordinary. If you use this time in between elections to share this conversation, to shape your narratives, to not let them win by letting them tell you who you are, that’s how we fight back.”
Related NewsArticle continues below
Last spring, Abrams was appointed as the inaugural Ronald W. Walters Endowed Chair for Race and Black Politics at Howard. In this role, Abrams promotes interdisciplinary partnerships throughout the university on important racial and Black political problems, particularly those that impact African American Americans.
Kamala Harris, a Howard University alumna, lost the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump earlier this month. If she had won, Harris would’ve been the first female president in history as well as the first president to attend an HBCU.
