REAL B | NEWS
In 1860, Sheppard Peek was recorded as an enslaved man in Crawfordville, Georgia. A document listed his value at $1,400. Another surviving record shows he signed his name with an X.
More than 160 years later, his great-great-granddaughter, Keisha Lance Bottoms, has been elected governor of Georgia — becoming the first Black woman elected governor of a U.S. state.
That family connection is the heart of a remarkable piece of history reported today by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The records tell us how Sheppard was documented by the people who enslaved him. His descendant’s election tells another part of the story: generations later, a woman from that family has been chosen to lead the state where he was held in bondage.
A trip back to Crawfordville
In the days before Election Day, Bottoms returned to Crawfordville, where her family’s documented history reaches back to Sheppard and Betsy Peek. The AJC reports that she visited her great-great-grandmother Betsy’s grave during that trip.
Bottoms has described herself as at least a fifth-generation Georgian. Like many Black families, her genealogy reaches a point where records created during slavery make it difficult to trace earlier generations.
The history behind the headline
This is bigger than a political milestone. It is a reminder of how history lives inside family names, old documents and places that still hold the memories of people whose stories were not always recorded on their own terms.
Sheppard Peek was not a number or a dollar amount. He was a man with a name, a family and a life. And today, his descendant’s election has brought his name back into the public record.
Some history is written in ledgers. Some is carried by generations. This story holds both.
Read the reporting
Additional election reporting: Reuters — Keisha Lance Bottoms wins Georgia race.
REAL B — Est. 2012
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