Stacey Abrams Honored Georgia’s Democracy Defenders at Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards

Following the 2020 election, Stacey Abrams was compared to George Washington. To Moses. To God. Abrams is widely credited for organizing Georgia voters and getting out the vote, in spite of immense voter suppression that targets people of color. Thanks to her, pundits agreed, a state that hadn’t gone for the Democratic Party since 1992 helped hand Joe Biden the presidency and elevated two Democrats to the senate. The voice of the people of Georgia was heard at full volume, across the nation.

But Abrams made this clear: She did not do it alone. She was not a solitary hero. She did it, primarily, with Black women leaders. And their names are not to be erased.

At the Glamour Women of the Year Awards held on November 8, Stacey Abrams honored some of the Georgia women responsible for activating true democracy in the 2020 election: LaTosha Brown, cofounder of Black Voters Matter Fund; Helen Butler, the executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda; and Nsé Ufot, CEO of The New Georgia Project. These women, Abrams told the Women of the Year audience via video message, “helped build the infrastructure in Georgia that made the dream of flipping the state a reality.” Abrams credited Brown, Butler, Ufot, and their respective organizations with helping lead voters not from apathy, but from despair. “The work these women have led is critical because it showed Georgians that their votes are directly connected to the progress we want to see,” she said.

Brown kicked off the speeches, singing “This Little Light of Mine.” “We believe in something great and something better, but who can make it happen? Black people, and Black women; we get stuff done,” she said. 

“I would like to thank Glamour magazine for honoring, recognizing, and recording the work of women of color, especially Black women, who have for decades been working to fulfill the American dream of democracy for all as highlighted by the Statue of Liberty: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, and those yearning to be free,’” Butler said. 

Ufot added, “I’m supposed to be here. LaTosha Brown, Helen Butler, we’re supposed to be here.” She also astutely pointed out that we still live in a country where the “male, pale, stale minority fight with each other about which of our rights to take away.”  

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter. 

The Glamour Woman of the Year Awards ceremony was held in compliance with local health and safety guidelines.