“More than 160 years separate these two moments in American history, but their connection tells a remarkable story of how far one family has come.
In 1860, an enslaved man named Sheppard Peek appeared in an inventory belonging to William Peek, a white man in Crawfordville, Georgia. The document assigned him a monetary value of $1,400.
Sheppard was not listed as a free individual with rights or possessions of his own. He was recorded as property under a system that treated human beings as commodities.
A century and a half later, his great-great-granddaughter, Keisha Lance Bottoms, made history.
On November 3, 2026, Bottoms defeated Republican Rick Jackson in Georgia’s gubernatorial election, becoming the first Black woman ever elected governor of a U.S. state.
Before this historic victory, Bottoms served as mayor of Atlanta from 2018 to 2022 and later as a senior adviser in the Biden administration.
Her election marks a remarkable moment in a state whose history is deeply connected to slavery, segregation, and the struggle for civil rights.
The contrast between these two historical records is powerful: an ancestor whose life was assigned a price by an unjust system, and a descendant elected by millions of voters to lead that same state.
History has a way of reminding us how much can change across generations.
Source: @beingblackislit (via @phil.lewis)
Historical reference: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 2026.”
