Stacey Abrams candidate for Georgia Governor made a campaign stop in Statesboro on Friday, November 4, 2022. Abrams is running against incumbent Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.
The event was held in the parking lot of the GS City campus in downtown Statesboro at noon and drew a large crowd of supporters.
Before Abrams came to the microphone there were several other speakers including:
- Len Faticia, Chair of the Bulloch County Democratic Party
- Eduardo DelGardo, American Workers Party
- Adrianne McCollar, First Lady of Statesboro who introduced Nguyen
- Bee Nguyen, Candidate for Georgia Secretary of State
- Jonathan McCollar, Mayor of Statesboro who introduced Abrams
Abrams began her speech by talking about her roots and the struggles she had growing up as the working poor in Georgia. She discussed their strong faith and how they made faith a centerpiece in their home.
She highlighted her plans if she is elected Governor including a plan to expand medicaid to create jobs and provide healthcare options to hundreds of thousands Georgia citizens. She wants to make technical college free and expand HOPE to make sure more students have the opportunity to go to college and add needs based financial aid. She wants to raise teachers starting salary to $50,000. Georgia has $6.6 billion in reserve now. Abrams plan, which she said was reviewed by MIT, would use these reserves and other current sources of funding to implement her plans without raising Georgians taxes.
"My parents wanted us to go to church because they wanted us grounded in something larger than ourselves so that when hard times hit us we didn't get knocked over. Because our faith kept us strong and kept us sturdy. They told us our faith was a shield to protect us. It was never a sword to strike other people down," said Abrams. "We didn't use faith to justify hate. We used our faith to show our love."
Abrams knew growing up that education was the pathway to her future and her father would always tell her that even though they were poor, "having nothing is not an excuse for doing nothing."
You can watch Abrams full speech below:
The final day to vote is Tuesday, November 8, 2022 from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm at your polling location.
