On Monday morning, it was announced that voting rights activist Stacey Abrams was nominated for the renowned Nobel Peace Prize. The Georgian politician was nominated by Norwegian socialist Lars Haltbrekken for her work in voter registration. In a statement made by Haltbrekken on Monday, he said to Reuters that he nominated Abrams because her “work follows in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s footsteps in the fight for equality before the law and for civil rights.”
Abrams has been recognized for her diligent work in voter registration for years, but this year she turned more heads than usual. According to her website, after founding the New Georgia Project, between 2014 and 2016, her organization submitted over 200,000 voter registrations for people of color. However, her work certainly did not end there. Abrams has been recognized as one of the main figures involved in the Democratic votes in Georgia during the 2020 election.
Georgia was a key state to win for both the Republican and Democratic parties, and it was a tight race up until the end. In the case of both the presidential election and the Senate elections, Abrams has been praised for flipping Georgia’s votes. Abrams has dedicated so much of her time to making sure black voices are being heard. After the civil rights events of 2020, it was a crucial time for Black Americans to vote. During an interview with Pharrell Williams on his podcast OTHERtone, Abrams stated that “I have no right to victory. No politician running for office has the right to win, but as a citizen of Georgia, I had the right to make certain that the votes were counted, that the people who wanted to participate could.” After record turnout from black voters, the politician’s goals were achieved. Joe Biden is the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state of Georgia in 28 years.
Lars Haltbrekken and Pharrell Williams are not the only public figures that have recognized Abrams for her dedicated work. Former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, actress Viola Davis and many more have publicly praised and thanked Abrams for her work. While her efforts in the 2020 election may have put her in the spotlight again, Abrams has made her name known in other ways as well. In 2018 Stacey Abrams was the first black woman to become a Georgia gubernatorial nominee for either the Democratic or Republican parties. Only a year later, Abrams was the first African American woman to deliver a response to the State of the Union address.
Nobel Peace Prize nominees will continue to be announced in the weeks to come. Some other notable nominees are the Black Lives Matter movement, environmental activist Greta Thunberg, former White House adviser Jared Kushner, WikiLeaks and others. Nobel Laureates will not be selected until around October of 2021, and the award ceremony will not take place until Deccember of 2021. Whether Stacey Abrams will win the Nobel Prize or not, being nominated is a huge recognition on its own.
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