a book, Black Tribunes: Race and Representation in British Politics (1993). Sewell graduated from Oxford with a degree in political science in 1988. She attended Harvard Law School for her J.D. degree, which she completed in 1992. There she overlapped with and was friends with Barack Obama, who became a lifelong friend and influenced Sewell's decision to enter politics. Early career After graduation, Sewell served as a judicial law clerk in Birmingham, Alabama, to Chief Judge U. W. Clemon, In New York, she worked at Davis Polk & Wardwell, alongside Kirsten Gillibrand, starting in 1994. Sewell returned to Alabama in 2004 due to her father's health problems. She worked for another law firm, Maynard, Cooper & Gale PC, where she was the first black woman partner at the firm. She was a public finance lawyer. 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? What do we do in order to fulfill that legacy, to fulfill the obligations and the debt that we owe to those who allowed us to be here today?") as the catalyst for her serving in politics. Weeks after his speech, Gillibrand called Sewell, recruiting Sewell to run for office. U.S. House of Representatives Elections 2010 After four-term Democratic incumbent Artur Davis gave up the seat to run for governor, Sewell entered the Democratic primary—the real contest in this majority Democratic, majority-black district. She finished first in the four-way primary with 36.8% of the vote. In the runoff, she defeated Jefferson County commissioner Sheila Smoot with 55% of the vote. In the general election, Sewell defeated Republican opponent Don Chamberlain with 72.4% of the vote. 2012 Sewell was the only candidate to file for the Democratic nomination in 2012, and defeated Chamberlain again in the general election. She has not had a Republican opponent since. 2014 Sewell was challenged in the Democratic primary by Tamara Harris Johnson, a former Birmingham City Attorney. She defeated Johnson with 83.9% of the vote, effectively clinching a third term. 2016 Sewell won a fourth term against a write-in opponent. 2018 Sewell won a fifth term against a write-in opponent. 2020 Sewell won a sixth term against a write-in opponent.