Spelman College, perhaps more so than any place in Atlanta, was rooting for Stacey Abrams to win the Georgia governor’s race Tuesday night.
Abrams graduated from the Historically Black College & University for women magna cum laude with a bachelors degree in interdisciplinary studies.
Win or lose, Abrams’ history-making campaign to become America’s first female, African-American governor is influencing a new generation of Spelmanites, students said at an election night watch party on campus.
Sophomore Taryn Gill, 19, who voted for the first time Tuesday, said the possibility of Abrams becoming governor “gives me hope to see someone like me who looks like me” achieve such heights.
Hundreds of students gathered at the party, many with one eye on television screens watching results and their other eye on their laptops doing schoolwork. Students lined up for T-shirts that read “I Am A Spelman Woman Watch Me Vote.”
Students talked about trouble some had casting ballots, complaints of voter supression and their efforts to assist. They shared updates about extensions to vote at Morehouse College. Speakers at the watch party discussed the importance of staying engaged and encouraged, even if they were unable to vote Tuesday.
“There will be a lifetime of elections to vote,” Nia Lundkvist, a senior majoring in comparative women’s studies, told the audience.
The college’s president, Mary Schmidt Campbell, talked about how impressed she was to see students engaged. The work began at the start of the semester, she said, with students organizing voter registration drives and early voting efforts.
“We worked some serious Black Girl Magic,” Campbell told students.
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