Keisha Lance Bottoms will soon be governor of the state where her great-great-grandparents were once enslaved.
The former Atlanta mayor was elected governor of Georgia on Nov. 3, making her the first Black woman anywhere in the country to hold that position.
Bottoms, who was born in Atlanta in 1970, has said she is the great-great-granddaughter of Shephard Peek, who was sold as a slave in 1826 in Crawfordsville, Georgia. In a 2019 X post, Bottoms said Peek is believed to have become a member of Congress after the Civil War.
Two hundred years later, Bottoms was selected to lead her home state, making her one of five Black governor-elects in the United States after Tuesday's midterm elections.
Bottoms, an attorney, has been married for more than three
decades to Derek Bottoms, whom she met in law school and with whom she shares four children.
Here's what to know about Bottoms' family.
Keisha Lance Bottoms met her husband in law school
Bottoms and her husband, Derek Bottoms, married in October 1994. They both attended law school at Georgia State University.
The two met as first-year law students in 1991 and were engaged in 1993 before graduating in June 1994, according to Georgia State's alumni association.
Derek Bottoms is vice president of Employment Practices and Associate Relations for Home Depot, where he has worked for more than 20 years. Before that, he worked as a law associate at the firm Powell Goldstein. In addition to earning his juris doctorate, he also has a bachelor's degree from the University of Georgia, according to his LinkedIn and a 2021 bio from the state of Georgia.
Keisha Lance Bottoms has four adopted children
Bottoms and her husband have four children, all of whom were adopted: Lance, 24; Langston, 18; and twins Lincoln and Lennox, 16.
She told theAtlanta Journal-Constitution in 2014 that she and her husband tried to conceive naturally and also underwent fertility treatments before turning to adoption.
"It sounds really silly, but when you're dealing with fertility and when you're a woman of faith, (I worried) does this mean I'm giving up because I'm looking at adoption?" she told the outlet at the time.
Although she thought she would have biological children, Bottoms also told the outlet that adoption was something she "always wanted to do."
"With each of my children, I knew in my heart that they were the ones to say yes to," she said.
Major Lance, a 1960s R&B singer, was Bottoms' father
Bottoms is the daughter of Sylvia Robinson and the late R&B singer Major Lance, who was popular in the 1960s.
Lance's hits included "The Monkey Time" and "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um." Elton John, then known as Reggie Dwight, was reportedly a piano player in Lance's band in the mid-1960s.
But after Lance's career began struggling, he dealt drugs and was arrested in 1978, according to USA TODAY's previous reporting.
In 2019, in an article for CNN, Bottoms recalled her father being arrested when she was 8 years old. After receiving a 10-year sentence for possessing and selling cocaine, he served three years in prison, she wrote.
After her father's arrest, Bottoms said her parents divorced, and her mother worked two jobs and went to cosmetology school at night to support their family.
"When my father went to prison, it felt as if I had lost not one, but both of my parents," she wrote.
Lance died in his sleep in 1994 from heart disease, according to an obituary in The New York Times.
Melina Khan is a national trending reporter for USA TODAY. Keep up with her on Instagram @bymelinakhan and TikTok @melina.khan2.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Meet Keisha Lance Bottoms' family, including her husband and 4 kids
