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From the toils of Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan emerges a twenty-first-century leader, Stacey Abrams. This Element explores the strategic organizing acumen of Fannie Lou Hamer in Mississippi and across the South, and the rise of Barbara Jordan, the second Black woman elected to the House of Representatives and the first Black woman from the US South to head to Congress. The leadership skills and collective political efforts of these two women paved the way for the emergence of Stacey Abrams, candidate for governor of Georgia in 2018 and 2022, and organizer of an electoral movement that helped deliver the 2020 presidential victory and US Senate majority to the Democratic Party. This Element adds to the existing literature by framing Black women as integral to the expansion of new voters into the Democratic Party, American democracy, and to the political development of Black people in the US South.

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Chapter Seven offers concluding thoughts and reflections on the major implications from this work. I highlight the most important lessons to be taken away from the fact that smaller proportions of African Americans (and indeed, racial minorities more broadly) feel agentic, entitled, or secure enough to engender and express anger over politics. How should this change the way we think about the roles of emotions in politics? Of the costs of the angry black man/woman stereotype? Of the state of black participation in a political era that seems sure to be defined by rife and rancor for a long time to come? This chapter also identifies indicators of a potential changing landscape in the role of black anger in politics, by highlighting rising black electoral leaders at the national, state and local levels who appear to legitimate black grievance in a manner distinct from previous generations. Is an emerging set of black political figures laying the groundwork for black people to see red over politics to greater effect?

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How to Build a Democracy

7 - On Dreams Deferred and Anger Inhibited

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How to Build a Democracy

7 - On Dreams Deferred and Anger Inhibited

Summary