Georgia Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms is preparing to lead the same state where her great-great-grandfather was enslaved. Sheppard Peek was listed in an 1860 inventory of a white man's possessions in Crawfordville, Georgia, with an assigned value of $1,400, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC).
On Monday (November 2), just one day before the election, Bottoms returned to Crawfordville, where she spoke with approximately 100 Black voters before visiting the grave of her great-great-grandmother, Betsy Peek. Bottoms knelt at Betsy's grave and wept, the AJC reported.
“My grandmother would tell me the story of her parents packing them up in a horse and buggy and making their way to Atlanta,” Bottoms told the newspaper. “All of our stories can be told.”
The following day, Bottoms made history becoming the first Black woman elected governor in the United States. Her victory also made her Georgia's first Black governor and its first female governor.
Before entering the gubernatorial race, Bottoms served as Atlanta's mayor from 2018 to 2022 and worked as a senior adviser in former President Joe Biden’s administration.
She secured the Democratic nomination in May after receiving more than 50% of the primary vote, BIN previously reported.
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