Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell is in her fifth term representing’s Alabama’s 7th congressional district. She is one of the first women elected to Congress from Alabama in her own right and is the first black woman to ever serve in the Alabama Congressional delegation.
Sewell sits on the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, charged with the oversight of national security. She has held several leadership positions, including freshman class president in the 112th Congress. She currently serves as a chief deputy whip and sits on the Steering and Policy Committee, which sets the policy direction of the Democratic Caucus. Sewell is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and is vice chair of the New Democrat Coalition. She is also co-chair of the Voting Rights Caucus.
Prior to 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 Alabama. The first black valedictorian of Selma High School, she received her bachelor’s degree in public and international affairs and a certificate in African American studies from Princeton, a master’s in politics from Oxford University, and her law degree from Harvard Law School.