The Everyday Feminist

3How We're Failing to Fund Our Most Powerful Change Agents—Everyday Feminists

The speaker, a middle‐aged Black woman named Portia Scott, was running as a Republican against Democrat John Lewis to represent Georgia's 5th Congressional District. She was the first Black female politician whom I had ever met. She not only graduated from Howard University (which made me later apply to that school) but also American University in Washington, DC. Listening to her campaign speech about what she can do for her district in Atlanta, I was stunned by her charm, her smile, and, perhaps most of all, that she saw me: afterwards, she walked over and asked if I wanted to volunteer with her campaign. Of course, in a sea of white faces at Riverwood High School in 1986, it may have been hard to not see me—an almost 17‐year‐old high school senior who decided to listen in on a community event while waiting for her mother, who was late to pick up her daughter from debate team try‐outs.

My family had moved to Atlanta from Philly before my senior year, and due to my advanced math, science, and language skills, district administrators said I had to attend a school on the other side of town from where we lived. The public schools in College Park, a predominantly Black neighborhood, did not offer the AP Trig, Physics, and Latin courses I was taking at Girl's High in Philly. So, I had to be bussed to Sandy Springs, a very different part of Atlanta. I was one of just a handful of Black seniors in my high ...