Stacey Abrams
Early life and education
Abrams, the second of six siblings, was born to Robert and Carolyn Abrams in Madison, Wisconsin, and raised in Gulfport, Mississippi.[3][4] The family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where her parents pursued graduate degrees and later became Methodist ministers.[5][6] She attended Avondale High School, where she was selected for a Telluride Association Summer Program.[7] While in high school, she was hired as a typist for a congressional campaign and at age 17 she was hired as a speechwriter based on the edits she had made while typing.[7]
In 1995 Abrams earned a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies (political science, economics and sociology) from Spelman College, magna cum laude.[1] While in college she worked in the youth services department in the office of Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson.[7] She later interned at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.[7] As a freshman in 1992, Abrams took part in a protest on the steps of the Georgia Capitol, during which she joined in burning the state flag. At that time Georgia's state flag incorporated the Confederate battle flag, which had been added to the state flag in 1956 as an anti-civil rights movement action. The flag was designed by Southern Democrat John Sammons Bell, an attorney and Chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia who was an outspoken supporter of segregation.[8][9]
As a Harry S. Truman Scholar, Abrams studied public policy at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs, where she earned a Master of Public Affairs degree in 1998. In 1999 she earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.[1]
