Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms took the national stage in one galvanizing moment

THEY SAY THAT IN NATIONAL POLITICS, YOU GET only one chance to introduce yourself to the country. For Keisha Lance Bottoms, that moment is kind of a blur. It came on the evening of May 29 as Atlanta, the city she has led since 2018, was convulsed by outrage over the killing of George Floyd 900 miles to the north, in Minneapolis. As demonstrations slid into vandalism in the city, the mayor called a news conference.

“I just went out there, and I spoke my truth,” Bottoms recalls. “And when I was done speaking, you know, I actually couldn’t remember what I had said. I knew what I felt, but I couldn’t remember what I had said. And I just remember thinking this either went really right or it went