Vice President Kamala Harris’ ascension as the first woman of Black and South Asian heritage to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president is a proud step for Sparkle K. Adams.
In 2005, Adams was the first African American elected to the Forest Park City Council. She later served as mayor pro tem and briefly mayor, before retiring.
“If I can pave the way and open doors, and like Vice President Harris said, kick doors down for not only myself to walk through but others to walk through, then I serve the purpose that God has laid out for me,” she said. “I know my purpose, and it is to build bridges between people.”
Adams, 69, is “optimistic and enthusiastic” about supporting Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
That energy — especially among Clayton County voters — will be key to the Harris campaign’s plan to win Georgia after the state flipped in 2020 to make Joe Biden the first Democrat to win Georgia’s presidential race in decades. More than 95,000 people from Clayton County voted in the last presidential election, an increase of more than 19,000 people from the 2016 election.
One of Adams’ proudest accomplishments during her service in public office is helping establish the Walking in Authority Teen Council, a youth leadership program aimed at giving young people a chance to learn about and influence their government.
Adams has made a career of leading the way for Black women. She enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1974, in part because “we don’t see people who look like me — Black women in the military getting our just rewards for the deeds that we’ve done.”
She earned her way up to the rank of master sergeant and worked as an air traffic controller during her service.
Now, she wants more support from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which she said often denies her requests for health care or monetary benefits because of minor defects in her paperwork.
“It’s traumatizing when we file for our benefits and we get the rejection letters or the denial letters because we don’t have a buzzword or two in there,” she said.
Adams is unsure about former President Donald Trump’s commitment to veterans based on the proposals put forth in Project 2025, a sprawling list of plans that could serve as an outline of his priorities if he were to win the presidency. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, is credited with writing the document, and while Trump has attempted to distance himself from the playbook, dozens of former members of his administration and campaigns were involved in its development.
“As an older veteran, I’m looking at the threats to our benefits, the threats to our health care and our disability rights in Project 2025,” she said. “I’m looking at friends like me that do need that help and assistance being threatened by the Trump administration.
“A lot of us were exposed to chemicals and different carcinogens that may not have affected us at the time we were in duty, but it’s affecting us in the long term,” Adams said.
As a senior citizen, Adams also said she wants to ensure Medicare and Social Security benefits are protected. It’s getting harder to afford basic staples and an occasional night out to eat, and she wants seniors prioritized in efforts to improve the economy.
“Help us out. They’re talking about working families. What about me?” she said. “I don’t have a child tax credit. I don’t have an earned income credit. Help me out.”
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