Donald Trump ran in 2024 with lies that Black immigrants were eating pets and horrific characterizations of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. After he took office, he began purging people of color from federal jobs.

Against that backdrop, then-candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms entered the Georgia gubernatorial race with a message: “No matter how hard they swing, you never stay down.”

It was a message that many of us needed to hear at that moment.

It wasn’t just that America had accepted Trump, but that it also rejected Black women. In states like North Carolina, Democrats won the races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, yet voters couldn’t also tick the box for the supremely qualified state attorney general turned senator turned vice president at the top of the ticket. When I asked myself why, the answer was almost too much to face.

It felt like America didn’t want us, no matter how often we proved ourselves or how qualified we were. It felt like a direct rebuke of our very personhood, from our fellow countrymen.

Black women have a participation rate of more than 60% in America’s labor force — the highest among women. We’ve seized opportunities and dramatically increased our educational attainment. Many of us are the breadwinner of our family despite earning lower wages. We help send men to the moon, we broker diplomatic deals, we craft the soundtrack of the nation — and still our neighbors reject the idea that we could ever be leaders.

In being elected the first Black woman governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms defied that devastating narrative. But make no mistake, this wasn’t because of the sudden altruism of voters; it was because of work put in by Black women who refused to stay down after suffering defeat.

Former state Rep. Stacey Abrams twice had to concede the governor’s mansion in Georgia, but the voting infrastructure she developed with her New Georgia Project laid the groundwork for reshaping not just the politics of the Peach State, but the politics of the nation. LaTosha Brown and Black Voters Matter have pumped millions of dollars into grassroots organizing in Southern states that set the stage for massive Democratic victories in the South last night.

And Keisha Lance Bottoms was key to her own success as well.

Throughout this campaign, people spoke as though her victory could only happen by clinging to Sen. Jon Ossoff’s coattails. They dismissed her extensive rural outreach, her laser focus on affordability and healthcare expansion, and her strategic use of campaign funds to ultimately clobber a billionaire opponent who was readily outspending her using his personal wealth.

Last night’s victory was not American voters giving Black women permission to lead. The governorship wasn’t a position they finally decided to give to us. It was the product of Black women not staying down, no matter how hard they swung. It was decades of subtle moves and superhuman patience. It was the indefatigable resilience that has defined our place in the American story and repeatedly held this country to its promise.

Come January, Georgia’s governor will be named Keisha, and she’s going to write a new chapter of that story and remind America what we can do.

Evan Brechtel contributed to this report.

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