Terrycina Andrea "Terri" Sewell (/ˈsjuːəl/; born January 1, 1965)[1][2] is an American lawyer and politician.

The district includes most of the Black Belt, as well as most of the predominantly African American portions of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Montgomery.

Because her mother had hoped for her to become a lawyer, Sewell joined the debate team in high school.

[7] At Princeton, she befriended Michelle Obama, who served as what Sewell called her "big sister" on campus.

[6] Sewell completed a 158-page long senior thesis, "Black Women in Politics: Our Time Has Come".

[7] After graduating from Princeton in 1986, Sewell attended St Hilda's College, Oxford where she was a Marshall Scholar.

[6] After graduation, Sewell served as a judicial law clerk in Birmingham, Alabama, to Chief Judge U. W. Clemon,[11] In New York, she worked at Davis Polk & Wardwell, alongside Kirsten Gillibrand, starting in 1994.

[5] In 2007, Sewell was at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church, where she is a member, when then Senator Barack Obama spoke during the 2008 United States presidential election.

Sewell credits Obama's speech (in which he asked "[t]he questions that I have today is, what’s called of us in this Joshua generation?

[13][14] In the general election, Sewell defeated Republican opponent Don Chamberlain with 72.4% of the vote as expected.

[15] Sewell was the only candidate to file for the Democratic nomination in 2012, and defeated Chamberlain again in the general election.

Sewell was challenged in the Democratic primary by Tamara Harris Johnson, a former Birmingham City Attorney.

[18] Sewell has established herself as a liberal with a focus on job creation, and arguably has the most left-wing voting record of any person to represent Alabama in Congress.

"[29] She also opposed the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, calling it "devastating" and expressing concern that "state legislatures across the country will now begin racing to criminalize reproductive health care.

"[36] In 2019, Sewell worked with Ivanka Trump to develop policies related to paid parental leave.

[31] In 2019, she sponsored a bill, which passed, granting historically black colleges $70 million for capital improvements and to support their educational work.

While there, they spent time "with American service-members and meeting local officials to discuss security and women's issues.

[32] In March 2021, Sewell voted for the American Rescue Plan, which included $475 million in funding for Sewell's district including vaccination support, city employee overtime pay, and hazard pay for COVID-19 response work.

Sewell is a lifetime member of Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama.