Fulton County elections worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss is among five people named Thursday as recipients of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for acting to protect democracy.
In the wake of a close vote that tipped the state of Georgia to Joe Biden, Moss was falsely accused of processing fake ballots for Biden by then-President Trump and his supporters. Despite receiving numerous death threats and racist taunts, Moss continues to work for the Fulton County Department of Registrations and Elections, where she has worked since 2012. The John F. Kennedy Library, which confers the awards, praised Moss for “doing the hard and unseen work to run our democracy.”
Alongside Moss, recipients of this year’s awards also include three other U.S. officials who were chosen for standing up for free and fair elections: Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky also received a Profile in Courage Award, chosen because of the way he has “marshaled the spirit, patriotism and untiring sacrifice of the Ukrainian people in a life-or-death fight for their country,” according to the Kennedy Library.
Caroline Kennedy and her son, Jack Schlossberg, will present the awards May 22 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. The award was created by the family of the late president to honor public figures who risk their careers by embracing unpopular positions for the greater good, and is named after Kennedy’s 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Profiles in Courage.”
“There is no more important issue facing our country, and the world, today than the fight for democracy,” Kennedy said in a statement. “The war in Ukraine has shown the world that we can’t take freedom for granted, and the courage of our elected officials in the U.S. reminds us that as citizens we each have a responsibility to protect our democracy and exercise our fundamental right to vote.”
