The Reward for Black Women’s Work in Georgia: Leaders Who Look Like Them

Mary-Pat Hector volunteered on Election Day to help get dozens of voters to the polls in Georgia, and she had spent months doing everything she could to energize other young people to support Democratic candidates. She was a Gen Z torchbearer for traditions of organizing and mobilizing handed down over generations of Black women. And she was prepared for a good night.

She was hopeful that Keisha Lance Bottoms would win, making Georgia the first state to elect a Black woman as governor. But then history kept being made: Up and down the ballot, Black women, all Democrats, claimed positions that had long been occupied by Republican men.

She called her mentor, a veteran organizer in the state. Both women were stunned. A future that they thought might be attainable some day in Georgia was suddenly materializing.

“We both just cried on the phone,” Ms. Hector, 28, said, “because we have been doing this work for so long.” Finally, she added, they could “see the fruits of our labor.”

For decades, Black women have been a trusted base of support for the Democratic Party in Georgia and also its most relied-upon foot soldiers. They have knocked on doors, registered friends and neighbors to vote, driven strangers to the polls and coaxed people who had all but written off the government to show up anyway. It was the incremental, sometimes inspiring, often frustrating work that revived the fortunes of Democrats in Georgia after years of Republican control.

Image

---

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

---

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.