Call her the Kevin Bacon of Congress.

Democratic Rep. Terri A. Sewell of Alabama is one of only a handful of people who can say she knew Barack and Michelle Obama before they knew even each other.

Her friendship with Kirsten Gillibrand goes back so far that Sewell calls New York’s junior senator by an old nickname: “Tina.” And nearly 30 years ago, Sewell recruited Susan Rice, the woman who would go on to become National Security Adviser, to join a gospel choir. Sewell’s youthful encounters with future prominent leaders are notable, even for the standards of the Ivy League schools she attended. But the self-described “little girl from Selma” says a greater force was at work.

“As a Southerner steeped in the church, I do believe in divine intervention,” Sewell told CQ Roll Call.

Sewell grew up in the Deep South in the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement. She came from a modest background in an economically poor region. Her mom was the librarian and her dad coached basketball and taught math at the local public high school, where Sewell was selected as the first black valedictorian in 1982.