My mother grew up in abject poverty in Mississippi, an elementary school dropout. Yet, with the support of women around her, she returned to school and graduated as class valedictorian - the only one of her seven siblings to finish high school. She became a librarian and then a United Methodist minister.

Stacey Abrams

Categorized in : School Mother Support Women

I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are, and i... by Stacey Abrams

I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are, and its exactly how we won.

The notion of identity politics has been peddled for the last 10 years, and its been used as a dog whistle to say that we shouldnt pay too much attention to the new voices coming into progress.

Citizens tried to exercise their constitutional rights and were still denied the ability to elect their leaders, under the watch of the now - former secretary of state, democracy failed Georgia. So lets be clear, this is not a speech of concession.

I think you dont run for second place. by Stacey Abrams

I think you dont run for second place.

I believe so, for me, the conversation that led to me writing' Lead from the Outside' is that we have to start evolving what the face of leadership looks like.

Running in a primary to be the vice president is very different than someone who has been selected by the party to be the nominee asking you to serve as a partner. I am open to all options.

I think that I am a skilled communicator, i think Im a very good thinker. No, I know Im a good thinker. I know I have policy chops. I have foreign policy experience.

I need women of color, particularly black women, to understand that our achievements should not be diminished.

The shutdown was a stunt engineered by the president of the United States, one that defied every tenet of fairness and abandoned not just our people but our values.

Make no mistake, the former secretary of state was deliberate and intentional in his actions, i know that eight years of systemic disenfranchisement, disinvestment and incompetence had its desired affect on the electoral process in Georgia.

Georgia still has a decision to make about who will we be in the next election. And the one after that. And the one after that, so we have used this election and its aftermath to diagnose what has been broken in our process.

So let's be clear -- this is not a speech of concession, because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper, as a woman of conscience and faith, I can not concede that. But, my assessment is the law currently allows no further viable remedy. Now, I can certainly bring a new case to keep this one contest alive, but I don't want to hold public office if I need to scheme my way into the post. Because the title of governor isn't nearly as important as our shared title -- voters. And that is why we fight on.

Whether or not it results in a run-off is to some extent just one... by Stacey Abrams

Whether or not it results in a run-off is to some extent just one point of this.

Voter suppression is not simply about being told' no,' it's about being told it is going to be hard to cast a ballot. And that's the deeper concern that I have. Because under( his) eight years of leadership, Mr. Kemp has created an atmosphere of fear around the right to vote in the state of Georgia.

I'm so bullish on Medicaid expansion because I know it works, it's a bipartisan proven solution that even Gov. Mike Pence did in the state of Indiana.

I'm an African American woman who is charting a very different path to doing this, i think people want to know : Will it work ? But I also think they're excited by the possibility it could work. Because it changes the conversation about how we have these debates, how we run these campaigns. It shows that there's another way to win.

I want our friends to come from around the country. by Stacey Abrams

I want our friends to come from around the country.

When you know that what you are doing is going to have a disproportionate affect on people of color and on women and you do it anyway, that erodes the public trust in the system and that's problematic.

Part of the responsibility is to have honest and authentic conversations about race, what we have to talk about is how race intersects with power. And my mission is to demonstrate that we can change the face of power, evolve it to include more people and people of different complexions and different backgrounds without diminishing anyone else's access to opportunity.

Our state's rich and complicated history courses through our memories on nights like tonight, when the unexpected becomes the truth.