Keisha Lance Bottoms Says Finding Her Enslaved Ancestor's Grave on Election Eve 'Knocked Me Off My Feet'

"It knocked me off my feet, literally." That is how Keisha Lance Bottoms described the moment she found the grave of her great-great-grandmother, one day before Georgia voters went to the polls in a governor's race with her name on the ballot. She shared the story on The Breakfast Club on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, in a clip the show posted to X.

Asked what was on her mind when she woke up that morning, the former Atlanta mayor and Democratic nominee for Georgia governor went back to the day before. She said she had traveled to Crawfordville, Georgia, where her grandmother was born in 1916, and visited a cemetery full of unmarked graves. She said she did not expect to find anything.

"I come from people who were once enslaved in this state"

Instead, she said, she came across the grave of her great-great-grandmother, born in 1845. She told the hosts she took it as a sign. "I get asked a lot about the historic nature of this campaign," she said, "and I've said repeatedly it's so much more personal to me, because I come from people who were once enslaved in this state." She added that her being the nominee speaks to what is possible "when generations make the right decisions."

She also leaned on faith, citing her grandmother's favorite scripture and Proverbs 19:21, and made a last-minute pitch: everybody has a cousin in Georgia, she joked, and she had 25 of them come in from Chicago.

Win or lose

Asked what she wanted to tell herself at the end of the night regardless of the outcome, Bottoms said she wanted to know she "was obedient" and did right by the people. Rich Motion is not reporting a result in the race here. Check official Georgia results for the latest.

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Sources: The Breakfast Club on X