The Riverside Book Club Featuring: Stacey Abrams

This month, Riverside Church’s Book Club reviews While Justice Sleeps by Attorney Stacey Abrams.

Author Attorney Stacey Abrams is perhaps best known for her powerful work in Georgia politics. She has served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007-2017 and served as minority leader from 2011-2017. As a member of the Democratic Party, in 2018, she founded Fair Fight Action. It is an organization that addresses the issue of voter suppression.

Her activism, in many ways, is considered to have resulted in boosting the voter turnout in Georgia that in turn resulted in President Joe Biden winning the state and with Democrats, in the 2020-2021 Senate special elections giving Democrats control over the Senate. She has also been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

She is also a well-known Mystery and Romance Novelist. Her non-fiction books have been reviewed as a New York Times Best Seller. However, she has published eight fiction books under the pen name Selena. While Justice Speaks is published under her own name, has been reviewed as a New York Times Best Seller, and is in the process of being produced as a television series by Working Title Films, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures.

Attorney Jean Schmidt is sure to have unique insights into the book, from the vantage point of a stellar career as a political activist and attorney. She has defended and prosecuted cases involving age, disability, sex, and race. She has served as the acting regional attorney in New York, for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and was the lead attorney in a nationwide class action sex discrimination lawsuit against a major food corporation.