How to Build a Democracy: From Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams

From the groundbreaking efforts of Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan emerges a twenty-first-century leader: Stacey Abrams. This Element explores Hamer’s strategic organizing in Mississippi and across the South, alongside the rise of Barbara Jordan—the second Black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and the first Black woman from the American South to serve in Congress.

The leadership, vision, and collective political efforts of these two women helped pave the way for Stacey Abrams, who ran for governor of Georgia in 2018 and 2022 and organized a powerful electoral movement that contributed to the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential victory and U.S. Senate majority.

This work expands existing scholarship by positioning Black women as central to the expansion of new voters within the Democratic Party, the strengthening of American democracy, and the broader political development of Black communities in the U.S. South.