Terri Sewell
Terrycina Andrea “Terri” Sewell is an American politician that was elected in 2010 as the U.S. Representative for Alabama’s 7th congressional district.
As a member of the Democratic Party and the first black woman elected to Congress from Alabama, Sewell is also the only Democrat in the state’s seven-member congressional delegation.
Prior to her legal career, Sewell was raised in Selma where both her parents held careers in the Selma public school system. She was the first black valedictorian of Selma High School and later graduated from Princeton University with honors, receiving a scholarship from U.S. News and World Report. After college, she was featured several times:
-Featured on NBC’s Today Show was one of the “Top Collegian Women”
-Chosen as one of the “Top Ten College Women in America” by Glamour Magazine
-Received the Afro-American Studies Thesis Prize for her senior thesis, Black Women in Politics: Our Time Has Come
Sewell then decided to further her education and received a Masters degree with first-class honors from Oxford University. She also attended Harvard Law School and graduated in 1992, with the help of an NAACP Legal Defense Fund scholarship.