Alma Adams

Early life and education

Adams was born on May 27, 1946 in High Point, North Carolina. Her parents were Benjamin Shealey and the former Mattie Stokes. She graduated from West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, in 1964. Adams received her B.S. degree in 1969 and her M.S. degree in 1972, both from North Carolina A&T University and both in Art Education. She continued her studies to receive her Ph.D. in Art Education/Multicultural Education from Ohio State University in 1981.

State legislature

Adams became active in the Democratic Party was originally appointed to the North Carolina House District 26 seat in 1994 to replace Herman Gist, who died in office. The district is located in Guilford County and includes most of southeastern Greensboro. She had previously already announced that she was going to challenge Gist for that seat in the Democratic primary that year. After being appointed to the seat, Adams faced conservative businessman and retired engineer O. C. Stafford in the Democratic primary. Stafford was a perennial candidate who had run for various offices, sometimes as a Democrat and other times as a Republican. He previously had challenged Gist as a Republican in the 1992 general election. In 1994, running as a Democrat, he was defeated by Adams in the primary.

Adams went on to win a full term in the general election, beating Republican Roger G. Coffer. She faced a rematch with Stafford in the general elections of 1996 and 1998 when Stafford ran as a Republican. Adams won both elections. In 2000 Adams did not have an opponent in the Democratic primary; she defeated Republican real estate broker Jim Rumley in the general election.

In 2002, after redistricting, Adams' seat was changed from the 26th district to the 58th district. Her only challenger that year was Libertarian lawyer David Williams, who withdrew from the race in October because he was moving to Colorado. His name still appeared on the ballot, but Adams won with nearly 86% of the vote.

Adams has been challenged for her seat for many years by Republican legal assistant and party activist Olga Morgan Wright. Wright has run for the seat held by Adams in nearly every election since 2004. Adams defeated Wright and Libertarian challenger Walter Sperko with 66% of the vote in 2004. In the next election Adams had no competition in the primary; she defeated Wright in the general election 66%–34%. In 2008, the year that Barack Obama was elected president, Democratic voters had a high rate of participation, and Adams defeated Wright 71.35%–28.65%

In 2010, Adams was challenged in the Democratic primary by Ralph C. Johnson. She defeated Johnson with 76.56% of the vote. Adams next faced Republican Darin H. Thomas in the general election, beating him 63.15%–36.85%. In 2012, Adams did not have any primary opposition and defeated Olga Wright in the general election by an even wider margin than 2008, 79.86%–20.14%.

Congress

In April 2013, Mel Watt, the only congressman to have served the 12th District since its creation in 1993, was appointed as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Adams was one of the first to announce that if Watt were confirmed, she would run in the ensuing special election. After Watt was confirmed in December, Adams formally filed paperwork to run in both the Democratic primary for a full two-year term in the 114th Congress and the special election for the balance of Watt's 11th term.

Analysts thought that Adams was at a geographic disadvantage in the five-way primary for both the special and regular elections (held on the same day). She is from Greensboro, but the bulk of the district's population is in Charlotte. The three Charlotteans in the race split that region's vote; and Adams won both primaries with approximately 44 percent of the vote, a few thousand votes over the 40 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. She faced Republican Vince Coakley, a former television and radio broadcaster from Matthews, in both the general and special elections, which were held on the same day in November. The 12th is a heavily Democratic district with a majority-black voting population and a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+26, and Adams was overwhelmingly favored in the general election, which she won.

Adams is the second woman of color to represent North Carolina in the House. The first was Eva Clayton, who represented much of eastern North Carolina from 1992 to 2002.

Legislative career

Adams was previously a member of the Greensboro City School Board from 1984 to 1986 and a Greensboro City Council member from 1987 until her appointment to the house seat in 1994.

In 2008, Adams was elected to a second term as chair of the North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus.

She was vice-chair of the Government Committee in the state House. Previously she was chair of the Appropriations Committee as well as vice-chair of the Commerce, Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.

Other work

Adams has been a professor of art at Bennett College in Greensboro, as well as the director of the Steel Hall Art Gallery. In 1990, Adams helped co-found, with Eva Hamlin Miller, the African American Atelier, an organization established to advance awareness and appreciation for visual arts and cultures of African Americans.

She is the chairperson of the North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus Foundation, which gives scholarships to students who are attending one of North Carolina's Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Personal life

Adams is divorced, the mother of two children. She is well noted for the many distinctive hats that she wears.