In Georgia and around the country, people are striving for a middle class where a salary truly equals economic security. But instead, families' hopes are being crushed by Republican leadership that ignores real life or just doesn't understand it.

When marginalized groups finally gained access to the ballot, it took time for them to organize around opposition to the specific forms of discrimination and mistreatment that continued to plague them - and longer still for political parties and candidates to respond to such activism.

The basis for sustainable progress is legal protections grounded in an awareness of how identity has been used to deny opportunity.

Stacey Abrams Quotes