We were honored to have @staceyabrams join us for our John Lewis Young Leaders retreat, where she walked us through the 10 steps to autocracy.
Democracy can’t defend itself. It’s on us to show up, speak up, and keep fighting.
Excited to share that I’m launching my Substack: Assembly Notes. A space for truth, strategy, and action—just like the conversations on my podcast Assembly Required. Democracy demands more than votes—it demands voices. Go to the link in bio to read my first post.
United Women in Faith Assembly-goers on Saturday focused on social justice issues, with inspiration from leadership panels, voting rights champion, author, and political leader Stacey Abrams and her mother, retired pastor Carolyn Abrams, and even from a woman dressed as a vrooming Indianapolis race car.
Carolyn Abrams, who holds a Master of Divinity degree from Candler School of Theology, credits United Women in Faith for “whetting her appetite” to serve. When she heard a United Methodist woman talk about social justice, she began attending UMW meetings, even though she was still a Baptist at the time. So, it was service that drew her to join The United Methodist Church and, later, to add a divinity degree to the master’s degree she already held in library science, she explained in an onstage Q and A hosted by United Women in Faith General Secretary and CEO Sally Vonner.
“The work of civic engagement is not about partisanship, it’s about peopleship,” Stacey Abrams said. “And peopleship means that you’re in this to serve.”
That means ensuring human rights—healthcare, housing, food—are met, she said.
“In the Scriptures we are taught that when we see a need, we meet that need,” Carolyn Abrams said. “There is no partisanship in need. Need is need.”
Those beliefs and Stacey’s connected passion for voting rights have resulted in public backlash and criticism in recent years, and Vonner asked her about it.
“Occasionally people don’t like me,” Abrams said as the audience laughed. “One of the ways I learned to navigate that was watching my mother as a Black woman pastor in the Deep South. I watched men of God tell her she was not allowed in the pulpit.”
Both women are committed to speaking out for racial justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion, they said, because they believe it is Scriptural.
On May 20, we’re gathering in Washington, D.C. for a national call to end family and child detention.
In detention centers across the country, children and families are being ripped from their communities and subjected to inhumane conditions at the hands of ICE and CBP. This crisis does not begin or end with one facility, and we won’t stop until all families are home.
Together with advocates, organizers, and members of Congress, we’ll raise our voices to demand:
- An end to all family and child detention
- Not one more dollar to ICE or CBP
- No expansion of detention systems
Join us in person Wednesday, May 20 and let’s #readthemhome. Learn more at readthemhome.org
Fight about ideology later. We have to make sure democracy still exists to fight for, first.
Watch more Runaway Country with Alex Wagner on YouTube.
#crookedmedia #runawaycountry
Here’s a sneak peek of our newest podcast episode Urgent and Important with Stacey Abrams.
@staceyabrams reflects on how reading and writing became tools for exploring ideas. She shares how fiction, from romance novels to legal thrillers, gives her space to work through anger, heartbreak, and complexity.
Premiering tomorrow on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts 🎧
“They are not just rigging the game. They’re kneecapping the players.”
In our debut episode, voting rights activist and former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (@StaceyAbrams ) reacts to recent voter suppression efforts in southern states following the US supreme court decision, Louisiana v Callais.
When asked about the way forward, Abrams told Stateside host Kai Wright: “They have fractured communities and said we’re going to scatter these seeds. Our job is to grow.” Find the full episode at the link in our bio.
@CrookedMedia #VotingRights #SupremeCourt #Tennessee #Alabama #USPolitics
Southern states are wasting no time following last week’s Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling that eviscerated remaining protections against racial gerrymandering. @staceyabrams explains what it means for Black and brown voters and ALL Americans.
“We are a backsliding democracy heading full tilt into authoritarianism... what is happening in the South is starting here, but it won’t stop here.”
