With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility I am one of the many who has been fascinated with what has happened over the last four years. But I don't believe that people can't make a difference. I don't believe in a "divine plan," and neither do most of the people I know who voted for Trump. That is why I believe that, with great power comes great responsibility. And Donald Trump doesn't have great power. He is a billionaire, and many people trust him because they are desperate for any savior, but they have no idea of his personal flaws or his lack of real policy expertise. Even with the president's tweets, which may have been amusing, there was no big plan or grand success with the government shutdown. The world didn't stop spinning because of that event. In fact, there was only one thing that had that kind of impact on the American political landscape, and that was the women's marches in January 2017, when millions of women showed up to stand up and fight for equal rights. With his tweets, Trump has shown a small measure of control, but in a situation like the one we were in on January 19, 2017, that would have made more sense if Trump had just said nothing about the marches. When a president issues a threat, it only serves to rally people to do something. This is exactly what happened to us. On one hand, it was a threat from a president who thinks he has more power than his position allows him. It was a threat directed at the one group of Americans he and his administration didn't think they could bully. Yes, I am talking about members of Congress who didn't do what he wanted them to do. I'm talking about a Senate with a Democratic majority who didn't do what the Republican president said. If Trump was just expressing his displeasure, you can bet that none of the Democrats would have been afraid. But with what he said, you can be sure it's not just members of Congress he was talking about. As I listened to Trump's speech, I couldn't help but think of my great-grandmother Emma Lou Barnes, who was one of the first women to run for political office in the twentieth century. Just four years after graduating from Atlanta University with a master's degree, she became the first African American woman elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1931. She ran for governor of Georgia in 1940 and lost, but in 1960 she ran again and was elected as the first woman elected to the office in the state's history. Emma Lou also served as Georgia's first female senator in 1971, and in 1985 she ran for and was elected secretary of state for the entire state of Georgia. She was an amazing person, and a strong feminist, so it would have been hard not to see what was happening in the White House that day and think back to her. Because Emma Lou wasn't afraid of anyone, and there wasn't a man or woman alive in 1930s Georgia who could have talked her out of stepping up to represent her constituents. Her husband, John Henry, had passed away, and she raised her three children with meager resources. It must have taken real courage for her to run for office in such a difficult time. After her husband passed away, she had been a substitute teacher at a school for African American children in Atlanta for three years when she decided to run for the seat as one of six members of the Georgia House of Representatives from the Twelfth District. I wish I could tell you that she went into the process unassuming, that she had no idea she would get elected. But of course, as you know, you never really know what you're getting into when you run for political office. The job is one you would never really want to do if you had any choice in the matter. But because the American government has always seemed like a distant dream to people like me, or any number of people in this world, it becomes your dream and your job. People say that running for office is hard, but I have never understood that. Not just for a woman, or a black woman at that, but for anyone who wants to do something for the betterment of others. It's like anyone who has a dream that's out of reach. It's not easy, but if it's important to you, you do it anyway. So what kind of world do you live in if you're about to run for political office? You have to give up many things, because one of them is personal time. You know that your work will be at least twice as busy as you're used to if you're elected. One job requires you to be in public service. Another requires you to do your homework and know your constituents' needs. So with so much on the line, all you can do is find the strength that Emma Lou had and run as if the whole world were watching you and waiting for you. I have been honored to know her for a long time, and every time I think of her I think of a few things. One is that she never backed down from any challenge or controversy. This is a woman who, when her husband was dying and she had no money, volunteered to take up the challenge of teaching children, knowing full well that doing so would take all the time in the world. It's a lesson I've learned over and over from my grandmother, who has worked two jobs for the last forty-two years, and from my mother, who worked as a manager for a major company for over forty-five years. They both worked and worked and worked. Emma Lou lived her life in her own way and helped everyone she could. My grandmother always told me, "Eva, don't give up because you don't know what the end of the journey will be, you just know that there will be an end to it." Which, by the way, is also how I felt the night before Trump's inauguration. And just as my grandmother told me years ago, I thought to myself, "The end of this journey will come. And when it comes, I will have the strength and drive that will get me through to the end of it." And I did. Some people are willing to work for free if it means their community will be better, but there are limits for most people, and you have to understand those limits as well as possible if you want to be part of that process. I've never asked for anything for free. In fact, I've never asked for anything until I actually had to. And that's a lesson that doesn't just apply to women, but to everyone who is willing to give themselves the kind of challenges I was willing to take on. I could have gone to law school anywhere, and most of the time, I would have had no problem getting accepted to any law school, but I had to accept what was on the table, what the situation was, and what the needs were. And that's the same lesson that all public servants are taught, whether they are men or women, rich or poor. It's just a practical decision. But there are those in this world who want to run for public office for all the wrong reasons. I knew that there was one person in the room in 2013 who wanted to run for governor, and he actually did. And I knew a few people who had the intention of running for public office in 2016 who didn't have a clue about what they were doing. I could tell you things about the women who ran for Senate and governor in Georgia in 2017 and 2018, but you would just be learning about why they lost. It was obvious that they didn't have a clue how to win. They were not running their campaigns properly. They didn't have a good strategic plan to win. It was one of those strategic plans where they would win one state, or one region, or one county and then move on to the next phase. It was a strategic plan based on "what we want" and not a strategic plan based on "how to win." The people who run on that type of approach never believe in themselves or in what they can do. They don't have the right attitude, attitude or temperament to be the leader of this country. And they have no idea of what the responsibilities are. They think they can just come in and give the people what they want. It was an attitude that I didn't even know existed until Trump ran for president. His attitude was completely different from every other president, Republican or Democrat, before him. Trump won the election for the very reason that he had the right attitude. He didn't have the experience, he didn't have the background, but he had the attitude. I want to talk about a few more things you should know as you're running for political office. The first and most important thing is you should never lose your composure. You should never start yelling at people or telling them how they are going to do their job. If there are disagreements in your staff, you should never yell at the staff that works for you, because the people who work for you will never turn out for you as long as they do not believe that you believe in yourself and they know you don't have the time and focus to do what you say you are going to do. If your staff is working harder than they are supposed to, then that's something you need to address. But if they're not, then you should not let it bother you. You can lose your composure in all kinds of situations, and there have been times in my life when I've lost my composure. I have had to learn