I know we have to have people of good conscience who stand up against oppression. I know we have to have people who understand that social justice belongs to us all. And that wakes me up every morning, and that makes me fight even harder.Collection: Morning
In her second career as a minister, my mother defied a legacy of chauvinism to become a leader of our community, overseeing a church that served as a hub, offering parenting classes, a food pantry, after-school programming, and - in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - a lifeline to those ravaged by loss.Collection: Parenting
We're too often told that our mistakes are ours alone, but victory is a shared benefit.Collection: Alone
I finished my higher education deeply in debt and with seven years of bad credit in my future.Collection: Education
Leadership requires the ability to engage and to create empathy for communities with disparate needs and ideas. Telling an effective story - especially in romantic suspense - demands a similar skill set.Collection: Romantic
My being a black woman is not a deficit. It is a strength. Because I could not be where I am had I not overcome so many other barriers. Which means you know I'm relentless, you know I'm persistent, and you know I'm smart.Collection: Strength
Good romantic suspense can never underestimate the audience, and the best political leaders know how to shape a compelling narrative that respects voters and paints a picture of what is to come.Collection: Romantic
The basis for sustainable progress is legal protections grounded in an awareness of how identity has been used to deny opportunity.Collection: Legal
To achieve our goals of educating bold and ambitious children, we must invest in enriching, quality early child care and learning.Collection: Learning
Our ability to participate in government, to elect our leaders and to improve our lives is contingent upon our ability to access the ballot. We know in our heart of hearts that voting is a sacred right - the fount from which all other rights flow.Collection: Government
Fundamentally, the solution to economic insecurity is economic prosperity - an achievable goal. But for anyone who has grown up without financial security, there's a shadow that lies over even those who move towards independence: lack of financial literacy.Collection: Independence
Let me be clear: I unequivocally support a two-state solution as the path to resolution of the Israel and Palestinian conflict, with Israel as the national homeland for the Jewish people. Moreover, I reject the demonization and de-legitimization of Israel represented by the BDS narrative and campaign.
The marginalized did not create identity politics: their identities have been forced on them by dominant groups, and politics is the most effective method of revolt.
Progress is possible, but it is fragile - and across our country, the battles for our most basic civil rights rage on.
We must use words to uplift and include. We can use our words to fight back against oppression and hate. But we must also channel our words into action.
We cannot expect systemic success when our teachers are underpaid and under-resourced, or when they split time being caretakers and counselors for our children as well.
Do not allow setbacks to set you back.
When people doubt your right to be somewhere, the responsibility falls on you to prove over and over again that you deserve to be there.
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.
Quality educational care grows resilient children, provides support for working families and stability for employers, makes Georgia more competitive, and invests in the workforce of the future, beginning in early childhood.
'First things first' might be a cliche, but it's a useful one that means prioritizing what matters most to you and believing there is no wrong answer. When it comes to figuring this out for yourself, the careful binary of work or life entirely misses the point.
The formerly incarcerated - returning citizens - often face a cruel irony in America. Having paid their debt to society, too many are banned from the ballot box that could help them dismantle policies that essentially extend their sentences.
I like to solve problems. I know it is a skill set, but it's also an obligation. I grew up with parents who believe that you don't simply complain: you try to find solutions and fix what's in front of you.
Here in Georgia, we continue to grapple with our own vestiges of hate. The image carved into Stone Mountain, like Confederate monuments across this state, stand as constant reminders of racism, intolerance, and division.
My primary goal is to eradicate poverty; I believe it is immoral and a stain on our society. And so when I despair or get angry, I take the time to think about how I can best achieve that goal - and then I get to work.
The consequences for failure are very different if you're a woman or a person of color than they are if you're a guy. If you're a guy who makes a mistake, you get a second chance. Often, for those of us who are outsiders, we make a mistake, and that's the end of the conversation.
Discriminatory legislation emboldens those who seek to make us afraid while giving those communities it hurts a concrete reason to fear. We must stay away from anti-immigrant legislation as well as so-called religious freedom legislation that harms our LGBTQ communities.
Regardless of their parent's income or zip code, every child in Georgia deserves access to a high-quality, affordable education.
Let's be clear: Voter suppression is real.
I am driven by a desire to see poverty end and economic security be a guaranteed capacity for every person. Most of the impediments or solutions are state-driven, not federally driven.
My mother grew up in abject poverty in Mississippi, an elementary school dropout. Yet, with the support of women around her, she returned to school and graduated as class valedictorian - the only one of her seven siblings to finish high school. She became a librarian and then a United Methodist minister.
As a writer and former elected official, I believe in the power of words.
Part of the reason voter suppression works is we've created this culture that says you don't challenge the outcome of elections unless the act is so egregious as to be absolutely clear on its face.
We need to recognize that, whether you're looking at Georgia or North Carolina or North Dakota or Florida, that the disenfranchisement of voters, the suppression of votes, cuts across every community, and therefore, it cuts across partisanship.
I reject the idea of work-life balance. The phrase is a bald-faced lie, designed to hang over the human psyche like the Sword of Damocles, because balance presumes an even distribution of weight, of value. But anyone who has ever lived understands that no set of tips or tricks can create a lifestyle equilibrium.
I believe we need leaders who actually want to lead everyone.
To make a good decision, you actually need to think about it, the contours and the consequences.
I was born trying to figure out why other kids were just playing in a circle. What are you doing in the circle? Duck, Duck, Goose? What is the goose supposed to do? You could be organizing; you could be producing products that are for sale. You have a circle, but how are you utilizing it?
By fully committing to our public education system and engaging holistically from cradle to career, we can guarantee that all of our children in Georgia, no matter their needs, have the kinds of teachers and neighbors in their lives that my mother had.
My life has always been about making certain I accrue the skills necessary to make my ambitions real.
I got into my first fight, Democrat versus Republican, in second grade. I won.
When you go after someone who has a deep ideological belief set that is contradictory with your own, it's conversion. Conversion is hard. Conversion is miraculous. We have entire religions built around the idea of conversion. Politics is not a religion. Politics is about persuasion.
While my parents both worked full-time, we still grappled with the scourge of working-class poverty. But my entrepreneurial mother used her research skills to consult. And, along with my dad, she even ran a soul food restaurant for my great-aunt.
My parents never ceased to struggle, but in witnessing their lives, I learned more about natural industry and leadership than in any classroom.
One of the traditional rites of passage for political candidates is the revelation of financial status - a catechism-like recital of money mistakes made and debts owed.
Money dictates nearly step of social mobility from the very first moments of life. How much our parents make often determines whether we go to college. It affects the jobs we get offered and the ones we can afford to take.
I grew up one of six children with working-class parents in the Deep South. My mother was a college librarian, and my father worked in a shipyard. I never saw them balance a checkbook, but they kept a roof over our heads and got all six of us into college.
Where I think historians can help preserve and actually restore democracy is to remind us of how we got it.
From making it harder to register and stay on the rolls to moving and closing polling places to rejecting lawful ballots, we can no longer ignore these threats to democracy.
We must reject the cynicism that says allowing every eligible vote to be cast and counted is a 'power grab.' Americans understand that these are the values our brave men and women in uniform and our veterans risk their lives to defend.