| Senator Sheikh Rahman, a Democrat, is the first immigrant to serve in the Georgia State Senate. Elected in 2018, he represents the 5th Senate District in the heart of Gwinnett - Georgia's most diverse county.
In the Senate, Sen. Rahman serves on the Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, Government Oversight, Special Judiciary, State Institutions and Property, and Urban Affairs committees.
Sen. Rahman grew up in Bangladesh, where his country was devastated by the Bangladesh Liberation War of Independence in 1971. At age 13, Sen. Rahman was kidnapped at gunpoint as a prisoner of war. In 1981, after graduating from high school, Sen. Rahman came to America to attend Central Piedmont Community College. In order to pay for his college tuition, he worked as a dishwasher making $3.35 an hour.
In 1995, after a 14-year process, Sen. Rahman became a U.S. citizen and finished his undergraduate degree in Economics and Global Studies at the University of Georgia, where he also served as a Student Senator and President of the Global Studies Association. After school, Sen. Rahman worked his way up through the ranks of the restaurant industry, becoming a corporate executive at Pizza Hut, Dominos, and The Kroger Company. He then embarked on a successful career in real estate, managing rental properties across Georgia.
Sen. Rahman began his political career as a student in community college when a friend invited him to work on a North Carolina gubernatorial campaign. He was inspired to run for office himself by another young man educated in southeast Asia - Barack Obama - whom he served as an at-large Delegate in 2012.
Senator Rahman is a lifetime member of the NAACP, National Action Network, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a National Advisor to the Alliance of South Asian American Labor (ASAAL), and a member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic Party of Georgia. He is a member of the Democratic National Committee and was the first Muslim elected to the Democratic National Committee's Executive Committee. He is also a member of the DNC's Labor, Asian-American and LGBT caucuses.
Sen. Rahman lives in Lawrenceville with his two children and wife of 26 years. |