A Historic Night for Black Leadership: The Election Wins Worth Knowing

Imagine it's 1964. You're  Black, living in the American South, and you've decided to exercise your constitutional right to vote. You arrive at the registrar's office determined to make your voice heard, only to be met with hostility, intimidation, and a test designed to keep you from the ballot box. Maybe you're asked to interpret an obscure passage of the Constitution or answer an impossible question, like how many jelly beans are in a jar. Get the answer wrong, and you're turned away. Get it right, and there's no guarantee you'll be allowed to register anyway.

As outrageous as that sounds today, these were among the tactics used to keep Black Americans from voting well into the 1960s.

Now, imagine telling someone standing in that registrar's office that 62 years later, a Black woman would be elected governor of Georgia.

Well, here we are.

On November 3, 2026, Keisha Lance Bottoms, an alumna of FAMU, made history as the first Black woman elected governor in the United States. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Howard University School of Law alumna Janeese Lewis George was elected mayor of the nation's capital. And those weren't the only historic victories of the evening.

There's so much to talk about here, especially when you consider how recently Black Americans were fighting for the basic right to participate in elections. And for those of us who love HBCUs, there's another exciting detail: both women are graduates of historically Black institutions.

Let's get into it.

Civil rights organizers and local residents at a mock polling station in Greenwood, Mississippi, during the 1963 Mississippi Freedom Vote by Matt Herron

From the Ballot Box to the Governor's Mansion

It's hard to appreciate just how significant these elections are without remembering what voting looked like for many Black Americans just a few generations ago.

Although the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited denying voting rights on the basis of race in 1870, Southern states spent decades finding ways around it. Poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and outright violence were used to discourage Black citizens from registering to vote. In some places, registrars reportedly asked applicants to guess the number bubbles in a bar of soap. The point was never to test someone's knowledge. It was to find a reason to turn them away.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a major turning point, outlawing discriminatory literacy tests and giving the federal government greater authority to protect voting rights. By the end of that year, approximately 250,000 new Black voters had registered.

But think about that for a moment. There are people alive today who remember when their parents and grandparents faced these barriers. And now, in Georgia, a state deeply connected to the history of the civil rights movement, a Black woman has been elected governor for the very first time.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former mayor of Atlanta, defeated Republican businessman Rick Jackson to become both Georgia's first woman governor and the first Black woman elected governor of any U.S. state.

During her victory speech, Bottoms reflected on her great-great-grandmother, Betsy Peek, who was born before emancipation. It's a remarkable family history to consider. Within a handful of generations, her family has gone from living under slavery to producing a woman elected to lead an entire state.

Once a Rattler, Always a Rattler

Long before she entered politics, Keisha Lance Bottoms was a student at Florida A&M University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism.

She went on to earn her law degree from Georgia State University, build a career as an attorney and judge, serve on the Atlanta City Council, and eventually become mayor of Atlanta. She also served as a senior adviser in the Biden administration.

Now, she's preparing to move into the Georgia Governor's Mansion.

It's an impressive journey and one that adds to FAMU's long history of producing leaders in law, government, business, education, and public service.

Georgia itself has a remarkable HBCU legacy, with institutions like Spelman College, Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, Morris Brown College, Albany State University, Savannah State University, and Fort Valley State University. For generations, these schools have helped educate the professionals and community leaders who shaped the state and the country.

And while Bottoms' election is historic on a national scale, she's far from the only HBCU graduate making moves in American politics.

In fact, another alumna just made history a few hundred miles up the East Coast.

Janeese Lewis George speaks to a crowd at an election night party at the Howard Theatre in Washington DC on Tuesday. Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

Howard University Has a New Reason to Celebrate

If you're a Howard University Bison, this next story might make you especially proud.

Janeese Lewis George, a 2014 graduate of Howard University School of Law, was just elected mayor of Washington, D.C. She'll be the first new mayor of the nation's capital in twelve years.

What's particularly interesting about Lewis George is how deeply her story is connected to the city she's preparing to lead.

A third-generation Washingtonian, she grew up in D.C. and attended its public schools before heading to St. John's University for her undergraduate degree. She eventually returned home to attend Howard Law, working retail and restaurant jobs to help pay her way through school.

Her family's experience of losing their childhood home after a rent increase helped shape her interest in housing affordability, an issue that would later become central to her work in local government.

After graduating from Howard, she worked in the D.C. Office of the Attorney General before winning a seat on the D.C. Council in 2020.

There's also a fascinating historical connection here. Howard Law is closely associated with Charles Hamilton Houston, the legendary civil rights attorney and former dean who helped develop the legal strategy that challenged segregation in American schools. Houston believed that lawyers had a responsibility to use their education to improve society, a philosophy that continues to influence Howard's approach to legal education.

More than a century after Howard University was founded in Washington, D.C., one of its graduates is preparing to lead the city itself.

How's that for a full-circle moment?

A New Chapter in American History

And the history-making didn't stop with Bottoms and Lewis George. 

In Florida, Byron Donalds became the state's first Black governor, while Georgia celebrated two more historic firsts: Tanya Miller as its first Black woman attorney general and Lydia Powell as its first Black woman state school superintendent.

Taken together, these victories tell a much bigger story about who gets to lead in America. For generations, Black Americans were denied opportunities to vote, hold office, and participate fully in the decisions shaping their communities. Now, we're seeing historic firsts in some of the highest offices in the country, including states where those barriers were once especially difficult to overcome.

There's still work to be done, and these newly elected leaders will have to earn the trust placed in them through their actions in office. But it's worth recognizing just how much has changed within a few generations.