Page 29 - Florida Sentinel 7-31-20

FLORIDA SENTINEL FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2020
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Talladega College Grad, Georgia State Sen. Nikema Williams Picked To Replace Lewis On November Ballot
Georgia State Sen. Nikema Williams (District 39) has been chosen to re- place the late Rep. John Lewis on the ballot in No- vember, paving the way for the first Black woman elected to lead the Georgia Democratic Party to serve the Atlanta-area district (District 5) in Congress next year.
The Democratic Party of Georgia chose Williams on Monday (July 20) to replace incumbent candidate John Lewis on the general elec- tion ballot after Lewis' death on July 17, 2020.
Williams, sitting in front of a framed picture of
Lewis' mugshot from an ar- rest during the Nashville sit- in protests of the early 1960s, campaigned on Zoom before her fellow members of the party's executive committee while "still grieving" the loss.
She noted her upbringing in rural Alabama, where Lewis also grew up, and called herself, "a student of the John Lewis school of politics," who has "practiced the art of getting into 'good trouble.'"
Nikes Williams was born in Columbus, AL, and earned a Bachelor's degree in Biology from Talladega Col- lege in 2000. She is married and has a son.
STATE SENATOR NIKEMA WILLIAMS
The legacy of Lewis, a civil rights icon who was first elected to Congress in 1986, shone over the vote on Mon- day.
Lewis helped organize the Freedom Rides, spoke at the 1963 March on Washing- ton and led the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where a state trooper frac- tured his skull with a billy club. That protest galvanized national support for the Vot- ing Rights Act, which candi- dates for his seat pledged to defend and expand.
The party's executive committee overwhelmingly voted for Williams over several other candidates, who were nominated from a pool of more than 130 appli- cants. The other candidates were State Rep. Park Can-
non, Atlanta Council mem- ber Andre Dickens, for- mer Morehouse College President Robert Franklin and Georgia NAACP Presi- dent James "Major" Woodall.
Williams' career experi- ence includes working as Vice President of Public Pol- icy for Planned Parented, Southeast, Inc. and is the Deputy Political Director at National Domestic Workers Alliance. She was elected chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, named Georgia Trend Magazine's “Forty under Forty.” She was elected to the state senate in 2017.