Stacey Abrams has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for her activism promoting non-violent change through the ballot box in the US.
The 47-year old democratic politician who served in the Georgia House of Representatives for a decade before helping Joe Biden win the US presidency joins a list of nominees which include former President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, former White House adviser Jared Kushner.
The World Health Organization (which took out the prize last year) also makes the cut as well as climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, the Black Lives Matter movement, and US Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
Abrams is largely credited for boosting the number of voters at the 2020 presidential election, helping Biden secure his place in the White House.
Lars Haltbrekken, a Socialist Party member of Norway’s parliament, said in a statement that Abrams’ work “…follows in Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s footsteps in the fight for equality before the law and for civil rights.”
“Abrams’ efforts to complete King’s work are crucial if the United States of America shall succeed in its effort to create fraternity between all its peoples and a peaceful and just society,” he said.
Dr Martin Luther King received the Novel Peace Prize in 1964 and remains one of its most famous laureates alongside Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the Dalai Lama, Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama. Nominations come from people all over the world, though they are not all endorsed by the Nobel committee in Oslo.
Since 1901, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded just over 100 times, yet only a handful have been awarded to women.
The first woman to be awarded the prize was in 1905, when Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner, née Countess Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau was given the prize “for her audacity to oppose the horrors of war.”
Other female recipients include Jane Addams in 1931, Emily Greene Balch in 1946, Mother Teresa in 1979 and Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991. In 2014, Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai were given the prize “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”
The 2021 laureate will be announced in October.
Photo Credit: The Washington Post (Getty Images)