My five siblings and I were raised in Mississippi. Even though we sometimes struggled to make ends meet, our parents taught us to work hard and to serve those who had even less. For us, public service is a way of life – one that taught us hard lessons about opportunity and inequality, especially in the African American community.
My parents believed in our capacity for success, but like millions of other moms and dads, they also had to teach us about the challenges our heritage would cause us to face. Unfortunately, gaps in educational options, persistent income inequality and the lack of access to healthcare are considerably worse for the black community. On nearly every metric, we cannot escape the reality that our nation’s long struggle with race is far from finished.
Today, white families enjoy a median wealth of more than $134,000, while for African American families, the number is $11,000 – in part because blacks are nearly three times as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage. Studies show that African American men are far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged with crimes and sentenced to longer prison terms than white men convicted of the exact same offenses. Historical policies that excluded our grandparents and great-grandparents who were farmers and domestic workers from Social Security and recent developments like on-call scheduling and wage theft combine to create barriers to equal opportunity.
To be sure, President Obama’s election and commitment to social justice has delivered a remarkable step forward for our nation, and particularly for African Americans. But change takes longer than a single presidency. To continue his progress, our next president must be committed the progress of those too often left behind.
Because she has been working on issues that will continue to transform our country for more than forty years, I believe Hillary Clinton must be that president.
As a young lawyer, Hillary worked with Marian Wright Edelman at the Children’s Defense Fund to ensure that poor children were enrolled in school. She fought against inequities within our prison system; and at the legal aid clinic at the University of Arkansas, she advocated for families all across that state with nowhere else to turn.
From the state legislature in Georgia, I have seen how her experience in the trenches of social justice informs Hillary’s worldview today. She called out Alabama’s recent voter I.D. debacle for what it is – a deliberate effort to make it harder for people of color to vote. She supports an end to the era of mass incarceration that has separated and stigmatized millions of families. In the fight for criminal justice, she supports the use of body cameras and has offered a plan to reestablish trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
Hillary’s experience working and living in the South also shaped her economic agenda. Though it begins with raising the minimum wage, she understands the necessity of equal pay for women. She supports paid family leave because she understands that parents cannot play a role in their children’s school if taking time off work means losing their jobs.
She has a plan to provide every family with access to preschool and help people of color obtain the capital they need to become entrepreneurs and start small businesses. Her New College Compact will help refinance debt and make college more affordable, including special financial support for historically black colleges and universities.
Of course, the Republican presidential candidates oppose the majority of these proposals. They promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has extended healthcare to 18 million Americans. Despite an epidemic level of deaths, they continue to oppose common-sense solutions to the regularity of gun violence that pervades our communities. Across the country, Republican governors and legislators have used the gutting of the Voting Rights Act to make it harder for people of color to access the ballot.
So this election year, it is more important than ever for us to exercise that right. We must start by nominating a Democrat who has the best shot of being elected the next President of the United States and that is Hillary Clinton.
In the African American community, we have faced tragedy and obstacles with a remarkable resilience. We realized that the more time we spend fighting for progress, the better the odds will be for the next generation. Our next president must see the possibility in every American – and she must be committed to creating a pathway that everyone can follow.
Fortunately for America, Hillary Clinton has been carving that way forward as a legal advocate, a public servant and in our nation’s highest offices. When we stand together to elect her as our next president, we will take another historic step together – towards a future we all can finally share.
Stacey Y. Abrams is the Georgia House Minority Leader. She is the first woman to lead either party in the Georgia General Assembly and is the first African-American to lead in the House of Representatives.
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