Stacey Yvonne Abrams is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author born on December 9, 1973, in Madison, Wisconsin. Raised in Gulfport, Mississippi, and later Decatur, Georgia, after her family moved there when she was a child, Abrams grew up in a middle-class family; her father was a pastor and her mother a librarian. She attended Avondale High School and later Yale University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Romance languages in 1995. Abrams then pursued graduate studies at Georgia State University, obtaining a Master of Public Policy and a Juris Doctor in 1999. Her early career included work as a tax attorney and policy analyst, and she founded a financial services company, but her passion for public service led her into politics.

Abrams served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, representing the 89th district, and rose to become the House Minority Leader from 2011 to 2017, making her the first woman to hold that position in Georgia's history. A prominent member of the Democratic Party, she ran for Governor of Georgia in 2018 and 2022, narrowly losing to Brian Kemp both times, with the 2018 election marked by controversies over voter suppression that she refused to concede, citing irregularities. Abrams founded Fair Fight Action in 2018 to combat voter suppression, and her efforts have been widely credited with increasing voter turnout in Georgia, contributing to Joe Biden's narrow victory in the 2020 presidential election and Democratic wins in the 2020–2021 U.S. Senate races that flipped control of the Senate to Democrats.

Beyond politics, Abrams is an accomplished author, having written several romance novels under the pseudonym Selena Montgomery and non-fiction works on voting rights and policy, including 'While Justice Sleeps' (2021). She has been involved in various organizations and initiatives focused on economic equity and criminal justice reform. Abrams continues to be a key figure in Democratic politics and activism, particularly in the American South, advocating for expanded voting access and addressing systemic inequalities.