Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms spoke Sunday at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta about the faith behind her campaign and a family discovery in Crawfordville: the grave of her great-great-grandmother, Betsy Peek.
State Sen. Raphael Warnock, who pastors Ebenezer, introduced Bottoms. The church was also once led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Bottoms said she started campaigning for governor about a year and a half earlier, unsure where the campaign’s resources would come from, but believing she was called to run.
Bottoms also discussed the financial scale of the race. She described billionaire Rick Jackson as a Goliath and said he put more than $250 million into the campaign. “Our God supplied all of our needs,” she said.
Bottoms said her grandmother was born in Crawfordville and her great-great-grandparents were buried there. During a visit to a cemetery with unmarked graves of people who had been enslaved, she said she found a headstone identifying Betsy Peek as the wife of Shepherd Peek. The marker listed Peek’s birth year as 1845, 20 years before slavery ended. Bottoms recalled dropping to the ground when she realized whose grave she had found, and said she wanted to thank her ancestors.
Bottoms is the first Black woman elected governor of a U.S. state. She is expected to be sworn in Monday, Jan. 11.
Marcus Jones
News Now Georgia
