Terri Sewell

Congresswoman Terri Sewell has represented the 7th District of Alabama in the U.S. House of Representatives since January 3, 2011 (112th Congress-Present). She is one of the first women elected to Congress from Alabama and is the first Black woman to ever serve in the Alabama congressional delegation. Before her election in 2010, Sewell was the first Black woman partner in the Birmingham law office of Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C., where she distinguished herself as one of the only Black public finance lawyers in the State of Alabama. Sewell sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, where she serves on the Health, Trade, and Work and Welfare subcommittees. She also serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the Committee on House Administration where she is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Elections. In the 118th Congress, Sewell was selected to serve as a chief deputy democratic whip and sits on the prestigious Steering and Policy Committee. Sewell’s first piece of successful legislation recognized the “Four Little Girls” who tragically lost their lives during the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 with the Congressional Gold Medal. The bill passed unanimously in both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on May 24, 2013, in a signing ceremony in the Oval Office to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the church bombing. Sewell graduated from Princeton University and received a master’s degree with first-class Honors from Oxford University. She received her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.