Interview: Elizabeth Williams on The Atlanta Dream and Rev. Warnock's Senate Victory
Lindsay Gibbs interviews Elizabeth Williams of the Atlanta Dream. They discuss Williams and the Dream's public support of Rev. Warnock, whose recent victory in Georgia flipped the U.S. Senate. Williams also shared what it's like to watch U.S. political events unfold from Turkey, where she's currently playing.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Lindsay: Hello everyone, and welcome to Burn It All Down, the interview segment. This is Lindsay Gibbs, and I am honored today to be joined by Elizabeth Williams, the center for the Atlanta Dream; I believe maybe third time Burn It All Down guest, just a regular here [laughs] on the podcast. She’s also a center for Botaş, the team in Turkey, and she’s actually coming to us from Turkey right now. Elizabeth, hi! Thanks for being here. [laughs]
Elizabeth: Hi. Thanks for having me. I know, I do feel like a regular now.
Lindsay: You really are. We gotta get you more merch – that’s on me. [laughs] But okay, so obviously we wanna talk about the work that you and the Atlanta Dream, the entire WNBA did to support Raphael Warnock and help flip the Senate. But a lot has happened since Tuesday night, and I guess my first question for you is just…How are you? Where are you? What has it been…Where were you when you first saw this insurrection unfolding?
Elizabeth: Um, the same place I was when I learned of Warnock’s news, which was in my bed. [laughter] I was getting a lot of my information via text messages and Twitter and social media, and then usually the timing of everything…Like, I’m either asleep or in bed, so yeah. But I’m okay, you know? It’s crazy, especially being a foreigner in another country, seeing this from afar, because you almost are glad that you’re distanced from it. But you also can see that the entire world is watching, and they’re just as disappointed as I am.
Lindsay: Yeah, I mean, I’m assuming – maybe incorrectly – that your teammates have been asking about this. Has this been a topic of conversation with your teammates in Turkey?
Elizabeth: Yeah, there’s one teammate I talk to more than most when it comes to political stuff, and so it was funny…I guess that was Wednesday morning when I walked in, I had a big smile on my face and she was like, “Is this because of all that political stuff you’re always posting?” I was like, yeah, Warnock won! This is huge! Then the next morning [laughs] I walked in and we looked at each other and I was like, well, this is the other side of all of this.
Lindsay: Yeah. [laughs]
Elizabeth: So, yeah, I talked to my coaches a little bit too because obviously they follow all this stuff on the news, but it’s really wild, and it's scary, you know? It just shouldn’t happen. That’s kind of the thing that even in my conversations that I got from this, that this type of thing should not happen. I think it’s a reality check for a lot of people.
Lindsay: Yeah, I think there’s been so much justification and minimization of rhetoric and of everything over the past four years, and even more much longer, and this is I think especially something Black women and immigrants and Muslims and all these people who are the target of this rhetoric have known, that these aren’t just words, right?
Elizabeth: Right.
Lindsay: But all of a sudden it was on display for the entire world to see, what these words look like in action. Are you playing games in the midst of all this? What is the schedule like right now? And I feel like I do have to ask, you know with COVID and everything, how are you compartmentalizing this?
Elizabeth: Yeah, we actually haven’t had a game since last weekend. We play tomorrow, so, just been practicing all week. We always get COVID tested two days before the game so there’s enough time to reschedule or postpone if teams have issues. So, my last COVID test was yesterday. I mean, I don’t really go anywhere. [laughs] I think that’s why I’ve stayed COVID-free. I literally just go to practice and home and games, but there are also restrictions here. After 9pm you can’t be out; on the weekends you can’t be out. When we have our games on the weekends we have to show our paper basically saying we’re athletes, we have a game, that’s why we’re out. So yeah, it’s a little different. But during the day everything’s pretty much open.
Lindsay: Yeah, so there’s actual restrictions! Alright, so, I feel like we’re talking about bad stuff, and like you said this is the other side of it. It’s very easy for the insurrection, for everything, all the violence that’s happened this week, to overshadow what happened about 12 hours beforehand, which was Raphael Warnock getting elected to the Senate. For you and I think for a lot of WNBA fans this particular story kind of starts last July when WNBA players arriving in the wubble and the co-owner of the Atlanta Dream, whose name we don’t mention, sends an open letter to Cathy Engelbert and is very anti-Black Lives Matter, calling the protestors “mobs” – just an incredibly unsubtle and racist letter. What do you remember about when you first read that letter, and those initial conversations with your teammates?
Elizabeth: I remember the conversations were hard. A combination of what was said and just the makeup of our team…We had a lot of free agents that year, so I think for them it was like, whoa, I just joined this team! What is happening!? [laughs] Then obviously the language behind it. We had put such a big effort in dedicating this season to the Say Her Name movement and to Black Lives Matter, and everybody feels very strongly about these issues, you know? As a league and team with majority Black players, this is very personal. It was initially just kind of gathering all those emotions, and then also when we were talking we were like, you know, at the end of the day we’re still here to play basketball and we still have a very unique platform and we’re still powerful, incredible women. So we’re obviously going to say something, and we also wanna do something. It was kind of that the doing something was the hardest part, you know? Creating this statement was difficult but not as hard, but once we tried to figure out what to do in addition was probably the toughest part.
Lindsay: So let’s talk about that statement which you all released. The whole team released a letter, it was signed by most members of the Dream. It was a very weird situation because you had even beyond what was happening with you owner you had a rocky start to the wubble, because you had multiple players testing positive for COVID, you had Courtney Williams – who wasn’t even in the wubble, so she’s back.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: Then, like you said, you’re the only one of two players who was returning, and the only player who’d been there more than two years.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: So, how do you even go about communicating as a whole about that?
Elizabeth: I mean, it was a Zoom call first of all, just because of all the circumstances, even though we were in the bubble, it was a Zoom call. I think it was just like a reminder of who we were and why we were there, and we wanted to make sure that she wasn't getting all of the attention despite what was happening. I think it made a lot of sense to go that way because of other players not really even having a relationship with her to begin with. So I think that’s what helped kind of establish what we wanted to move forward.
Lindsay: Did you feel the pressure? Did you feel like everyone was watching to see what we do and what we say?
Elizabeth: Yeah, a little bit. I mean, there were other players and other teams that obviously had things to say, but it’s different when it’s your team, you know? It’s different when you’re [laughs] the one being talked about. This is your owner. So, yeah, in that sense it was difficult. I think I felt the pressure a little bit. But again, just because we did have these conversations and have the support of our staff, it made a difference.
Lindsay: After the letter was released and it’s still training camp time, and you with the players association – you’re the secretary of the players association, is that right?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: You start figuring out, okay, we’ve released our statement but obviously we wanna do an action. How did the idea come about to start looking at her political opponents?
Elizabeth: So, we have our executive committee group chat. We’re always throwing ideas out there. We have a player reps group chat, like, just a bunch of group chats. [laughter] I think it was Sue in our executive committee group chat that said since we can’t really do anything about her ownership we should look at who’s in that Senate seat. This is a big election year. So, that’s when we contacted Lisa Borders and Stacey Abrams, who’s our union board of advocates, because they kind of already have the political background. We were able to learn about Warnock and get connected to him, and he was really open to having a conversation with us because we wanted to see what he was about, we wanted to vet him. We didn't wanna just randomly pick somebody. So, he was great, and his staff was on the call, and he talked about his work as related to social justice and protesting and all that he wanted to do. So then we ultimately decided, alright, this is our guy and we’re gonna support him.
Lindsay: What in particular were the policies that he was promoting that made you feel confident about supporting him?
Elizabeth: I would say – these are just the first in my head, not necessarily priority – reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, criminal justice reform…Kind of all the things we’ve been talking about, so… [laughter]
Lindsay: Yeah, those are big ones!
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: Those matter a lot. [laughs] You mentioned that Lisa Borders, who's the former WNBA president, had a close relationship with you all, and then of course Stacey Abrams, who I’m sure most of our listeners are aware of the work she has done in Georgia to help organize and register voters and gain momentum. So, first of all, how wonderful that two people who were so connected in the Georgia political scene were so close to the WNBA, and also two people who helped the WNBA come to Atlanta in the first place!
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah. A lot of people don’t realize that Stacey Abrams played a big part in getting the team in Atlanta, so it's pretty cool that this all kind of ironically came full circle.
Lindsay: Yeah, [laughs] just kind of a full circle moment. Okay, so you decide we wanna support Warnock. At the time he’s polling 9%, I believe. So I think it's important for people to remember he wasn’t necessarily an obvious choice, he wasn’t a household name at this point. When you talked about making the endorsement, how did you want to let that be known? Did the idea for the t-shirts, was that the first thought that you all had? Or were there other ways you thought about going about making that endorsement?
Elizabeth: I think t-shirts ended up being the first idea because we had been doing so much with t-shirts, you know? We had the ‘Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor’ t-shirts, we were wearing the Black Lives Matter shirts in warmups, and with out increased media attention and increased TV games, anytime we walked into the arena there were pictures being taken of what we were wearing. So it was like, alright, this is the perfect opportunity by wearing shirts to support and promote Reverend Warnock.
Lindsay: Did those ‘VOTE WARNOCK’ t-shirts already exist? [laughs] Because I know his campaign didn't even start selling those t-shirts until after you all made your statement.
Elizabeth: Yeah, they didn’t have the shirts before. I think it was Sue who got them made, and then we were like, okay, it’s not only about Atlanta wearing the shirts. Everyone should wear these shirts. The best time to wear the shirts would be when Atlanta had its first nationally televised game. So, it was really cool that everyone had the opportunity, and it wasn’t mandatory. [laughs] But everyone had an opportunity to wear the shirts, and no better time than when we’re gonna be playing on national TV.
Lindsay: Yeah, so what happened was I think there was maybe multiple TV games that night, and the first was Atlanta Dream vs Phoenix Mercury. The majority of both teams come out in ‘VOTE WARNOCK’ t-shirts, and of course later the Seattle Storm also wore them, the Chicago Sky, the Aces…But it because, you’re right, like a league-wide thing. Were you all nervous before you stepped off the bus in those shirts?
Elizabeth: Yeah. I think everyone was a little nervous. It’s a big deal, supporting and promoting a political candidate…
Lindsay: Who is going agains the owner of your team! [laughs] Not just any political candidate!
Elizabeth: Yeah. He’s not just any candidate, right. So, it was a bit nerve-wracking. I don’t think there was fear that we’re gonna get kicked off the team or something like that, I think it was just more that the whole situation was pretty intimidating. But again, because there’s so much support from other players and the league it was reassuring, like, we’re doing the right thing.
Lindsay: Yeah, and I mean, talk about intimidating! I remember being on…We’re all on Zoom, you get like three players who are put up in front of the camera and that’s it, right?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: I remember one of the players was Chennedy Carter, who was a rookie, right? I think she had had a big game, and I remember being like, I’ve gotta ask her about this. She’s the in the ‘VOTE WARNOCK’ t-shirt, I’m putting her on the spot, I hate that I’m doing that, but it’s wrong if I don’t ask. And she was really comfortable with it!
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: She just said yeah, we support everything he stands for, and vote Warnock, you know? She didn’t shy away from the moment at all. How does it feel…I mean, you are so young, and you haven’t been in the league for like a decade or anything, but on that particular team you are the vet, you are the leader. It is a pretty young team. Was there a sense of pride seeing how your younger teammates were handling this moment?
Elizabeth: I guess so. I mean, for me it’s kind of how I approach anything – I want everyone to be prepared. [laughter] I was, you know, making sure everyone had the right messaging points, and hopefully were confident and clear, and that was another reason when we started this, we were saying you don’t have to wear the shirts, right? Because if you don’t feel comfortable even talking about it then you probably shouldn’t be wearing it. [laughs] So, for me I was just glad that the message was being effectively communicated. So, I think I took more pride in that.
Lindsay: That is the peak Elizabeth Williams answer. [laughter] I love that so much! What do you remember about the reaction to the t-shirts?
Elizabeth: It just kind of piqued a lot of people’s interest, because like you said he was polling at 9%, so even people in Georgia didn’t really know who he was. Because it was such a national thing and we had teams from all over wearing the shirts, people started asking questions, you know? I also think there’s obviously surprise – people were surprised to see us do something like that, and also very impressed, because we could’ve easily not taken the high road and just started bashing our co-owner and saying, like, “We support Black Lives Matter, you’re a hater, you’re this, you’re that…” We decided that wasn’t the way we wanted to go with this. We’d been so strategic with all our social justice work, that this was the perfect culmination of everything that we’d done.
Lindsay: Was it hard not to be reactionary during this whole thing? [laughs] Because like you mentioned, a lot of players throughout the league did go straight to Twitter, right, and did speak out in that way. I’m not saying there's anything wrong with that, right? It was good to have voices there. How hard was it not to go that route?
Elizabeth: Yeah, that was probably the toughest part because everybody has such different emotions and different mindsets when it comes to this type of stuff. So yeah, it was hard. It was hard to make sure that everyone was on the same page and to make sure that people aren’t just saying crazy stuff, right? But we also knew that the way for this to be effective is if we do it in this way. So I think once people started to understand that, that’s how we kind of moved into the right direction and things were going the right way.
Lindsay: Was there tension? Were there people who wanted to go a different direction? Players who were like, I wanna tweet about this, I wanna take a stand in this way?
Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s definitely fair to say.
Lindsay: Yeah? [laughs]
Elizabeth: Yeah, I mean, it’s like that with anything.
Lindsay: Of course.
Elizabeth: You get so many personalities, so many people, even in CBA negotiations, it’s the way human beings are. So, it’s creating a strategy and then ultimately agreeing that this is the best strategy even if that wasn’t necessarily your first instinct.
Lindsay: Okay, so, you keep having these conversations throughout the wubble, but one of the best things is you didn’t stop the work when the season ended – because in many ways the campaign was really just beginning. What groups did you connect with, and was there anything that you kind of learned about the grassroots level of political organizing and about activism?
Elizabeth: It’s a lot, it’s really hard. I think the first group was probably Fair Fight, just because it’s Stacey Abram’s organization. New Georgia Project…And then I did some work with More Than A Vote, and I know they had some people on the ground in Atlanta. Our union also has worked with Rock the Vote for a while, and so the voter registration stuff was really huge for us. For me, since I’m doing everything remotely, it looked a lot like doing PSAs or recording videos, and I noticed that for these organizations it does make a difference when they have celebrities or professional athletes that are amplifying what they’re doing – which is unfortunate, because they’re doing really really good work, but it was really helpful for them.
I think that fortunately it’s allowed people to see their work and to donate to them and actually help them with what they’re doing and allowing people to go out and knock on doors. So, yeah, it’s been really powerful to see. I think it also inspired a lot of us in our offseason to stay involved, and I think that’s why you saw Nneka and Chiney being poll workers or you see NBA players making sure that arenas are places where people can do early voting. It’s been a cool journey to see everyone’s involvement, for sure.
Lindsay: You also had two teammates, Tiffany Hayes and Renee Montgomery, who opted out of the WNBA season to kind of focus on activism and social justice work in part. I know they’ve done some work on the ground…Were you connected at all to them? Did you kind of stay in contact with them about, you know, the work that they were able to do outside the wubble?
Elizabeth: Yeah, it was important when we had our statement to have Renee and Tip be aware of what we were saying and have them sign and say even though they’re not with us physically that this is just as important for what they’re doing. Tip has her own gym, so she was making sure people were registering to vote, and I feel like Renee was just everywhere [laughs] doing everything.
Lindsay: Literally everywhere! [laughter]
Elizabeth: Yeah, I was like, wow! I can’t even keep up with her, to be honest.
Lindsay: There must be five Renee Montgomerys, like that’s the only way that she gets that much done. [laughs]
Elizabeth: Yeah, it was nuts. So, I think there are some things that were just kind of specific to the wubble in what we were doing, just because we’re showing shirts and doing these things related to the games, but I did always try to keep her up to date, especially as related to stuff with the team.
Lindsay: Yeah, and how has the process been for you, all of a sudden now leading this team, leading the league as a whole on this big issue? Were there any moments where you felt unprepared in any way or overwhelmed by the moment? Or did it feel like you were where you were supposed to be?
Elizabeth: I feel like I was where I was supposed to be. I feel like it was a gradual progression. I went to my first protest in the summer, early in the summer in Atlanta, and I think that was the first moment where I was kind of putting the knowledge with the emotion of what was happening. I think after that then things just started happening. I think it was also that plus if I think back to CBA negotiations, right? There’s a level of responsibility there, and still kind of constantly building on this position of feeling a sense of responsibility, and then plus learning, plus emotion, and then you get into the bubble and your co-owner writes this letter…So, it kind of fell into place where I was like, okay, I feel like I’m in the position where it’s appropriate for me to speak up and I’m getting more comfortable in speaking up. It just kind of kept growing as stuff kept happening.
Lindsay: So, November happens, and all of a sudden this candidate that you endorsed has the focus of the entire country on him because there’s a chance to actually flip the Senate. Were you in Turkey during this whole time? What went through your mind when you realized that all of a sudden this candidate that you were publicly endorsing, that there was a chance to flip the Senate?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I was actually home in Atlanta for a break the week of the general election, but I went back like a week later. I always thought about back in August when we had talked with Reverend Warnock, how he was so confident and he said, “I might not win in a general, but when it comes to January I’m gonna win.” He literally said that. I think he knew just because of the way the ballot was, with so many names, and he’s literally at the bottom because it’s alphabetical. [laughs] Him getting 50% was just not gonna happen. So, I was home for that, and it was crazy to think that like, wow, this runoff actually is happening. [laughter] This is what he said! I think I was starting to feel the confidence too that he could win.
Lindsay: Were you able to sleep through that night on January 5th/6th? How far ahead are you in Turkey? What was the timeline, and was there any sleep? [laughs]
Elizabeth: I’m 8 hours ahead, so it’s like the worst time difference for polls closing at 7. So, I kind of fell asleep and then I would wake up and get up, dazed, and then I’m like, “I really need to sleep!” [Lindsay laughs] So I was kind of like, I got a total of 4-5 hours. But then in the morning, my morning, I was like alright, for sure Warnock, most likely Ossoff. I just initially felt relief because it had been such a long process, but then I was like, wow, this is really cool. [laughs]
Lindsay: Were any of those group chats lighting up?
Elizabeth: Yes, always.
Lindsay: [laughs] Are you one of those people who puts the group chat on mute–
Elizabeth: [laughs] I actually just did. Well, I sleep with Do Not Disturb, so that helps.
Lindsay: I can imagine the Dream players and the WNBA as a whole…Were you all kind of collectively experiencing this together even though you were in all corners of the world?
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah. It was funny, like, kind of the delays between people in different places overseas.
Lindsay: [laughs] That’s really amazing. Do you expect LeBron James to be your new team owner, is my next question!
Elizabeth: I’m not sure! There’s a lot of names that put their names in the hat after that tweet, like Kerry Washington and Mookie Betts and all these people. [laughter] So, I don’t know if I’m expecting that. I mean, I am expecting there to be a change in ownership, that’s very fair to say – for a number of reasons, just with everything that’s happened, I wouldn’t expect her to want to remain as co-owner either, right? But I don’t know about LeBron. We’ll see! [laughs]
Lindsay: My hope is like, we can have new WNBA teams as well!
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: Right?! There’s room for everyone here, people! [laughs]
Elizabeth: Yes, exactly. We can just expand.
Lindsay: Yeah. How important is it for you, for the franchise though, to stay in Atlanta?
Elizabeth: I think it’s big. I believe we’re the only WNBA team between Florida and Tennessee…There’s just no other team in that area. It’s just a big basketball city, so I do think it’s important to make sure we’re still in Atlanta but, I mean, I’d be open to expansion too. [laughter] I’d love to see some more teams, for sure.
Lindsay: Yeah, like especially after all of this, right after the team has been so integral, the team who’s named after the I Have a Dream speech.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: For me, after all of this, after seeing the team so involved in the Senate race and with Georgia, I think it would be sad for…And also, like you said, there’s no other teams in this part of the country.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: Okay, I know I gotta let you go and get some sleep over there, but I guess…What have you learned about just the work that goes in, and what would you tell other athletes or just fans or just people about really getting involved and maybe demystifying the actual work itself?
Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s a big question. I think one thing is that your voice can end up being really big, and to not be afraid of that. I think when we started all this, regardless we were gonna do the work. But it's kind of cool to see just the massive impact we did have, but a lot of that was because we had conversations and we strategized and we reached out to people that we know have been doing this for a long time, right? You have to give Lisa Borders and Stacey Abrams their credit in what we were able to do. So, you know athletes – you can reach out to these organizations and ask questions and say, “How can I help?” and there are definitely so many ways and so many different things that you can do to make a difference. So, even our league of only 12 teams helped to do something really incredible, so athletes can do anything.
Lindsay: Athletes can do anything – and so can the rest of us! The rest of us can get involved too, you know? I’m in North Carolina and there’s been a lot of like, “Who’s gonna be the Stacey Abrams from North Carolina?” and it's like…You do it! You know? Just everybody step up and do the work, right?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Lindsay: Stop waiting for someone to come in and rescue you, you know?
Elizabeth: And you don’t even have to be the Stacey Abrams, right? You can just be the poll workers in the county that just doesn’t have poll workers. That’s a game changer when it comes to elections. There are just different things, you don’t have to be that huge person, but you’ll still make a huge difference.
Lindsay: Well, I think that’s the perfect place to end this. Elizabeth, thank you again. Honorary co-host! You’re getting close to just taking over here on Burn It All Down. [laughter] We’re so appreciative of your time, and so happy just with all the work you all have done. It’s been fun to see you grow over the years and just to see what a momentous occasion for it to kind of built to, and I know it’s not the end.
Elizabeth: Absolutely.
Lindsay: Alright, thank you.
Elizabeth: Thank you.