This is an opinion column.

You might be tempted to look at Shalela Dowdy – one of the plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark voting rights decision this week – as an exemplar of the American Dream.

And why not? She fits that bill. Then again, who could dream this stuff up?

Dowdy was the oldest of 10 kids growing up in the Roger Williams housing project in Mobile. She and several of those siblings did a stint in foster care in the ‘90s, relying on government assistance and good fortune for survival itself.

Her story could have easily gone terribly wrong. It happens all the time.

But it did not. When she wasn’t helping to raise brothers and sisters, Dowdy committed herself to sports, and to the Junior ROTC program at Murphy High School. She became a track star, and worked her way up to JROTC battalion commander, the top dog.

She parlayed all that to an appointment at West Point, the nation’s military academy, where she ran 800 meters and longer distances on the track team. She says she overcame discrimination to succeed at the academy, but came out proud. She was deployed to Bahrain and spent six years of active duty as an air defense artillery officer. She was recently promoted to major in the Army Reserve.

“You’re kind of thrust into a leadership position within your family structure,” she said. “I’ve always been academically sound, athletically sound. It allowed me to be able to juggle multiple things at once….I’ve always always juggled a lot.”

That’s not even the half of her.

Dowdy was a pageant queen – Miss Mobile 2015 – and competed in the Miss Alabama USA pageant. She got a master’s degree in leadership at the University of Texas El Paso, and is currently taking classes in law school at Southern University.

She is devoted to her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, and is a bit of a social media star. She started the Delta Fierce Instagram page, which now boasts 70,000 followers.

She’s been a coach and an advocate for justice, working for voter rights in Mobile. She received a fellowship to educate Alabamians about redistricting, and to encourage people to get involved in voting issues.

It was that work that led her to become a plaintiff in the case known as Milligan vs. Merrill, in which the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday issued a 5-4 ruling that shocked many observers, that stymies, for now anyway, a conservative effort to water down the Voting Rights Act. It will affect the way congressional districts are drawn, and perhaps the content of Congress itself.

“We were simply fighting for fair maps and fair representation,” Dowdy said Friday. To me it was a form of protecting democracy … and making sure that when it came to black voters in Alabama, that equality was present.”

Did I mention Dowdy is just 33?

“She’s amazing,” fellow plaintiff Letetia Jackson said. “I’m on the wind down of life, and she’s just getting started.”

What’s Dowdy’s secret? It’s not so secret. She figures she was born into the expectation of leadership, what with herding all those siblings. She had more responsibilities than most people her age could handle. But she had drive, and people to lean on, and certain gifts.

Dowdy says she was blessed by mentors, such as Lt. Col. (Ret) Steven E. Garner, who helped her understand leadership, and an aunt who inspired her and cared for her, such as friends she visited at West Point when she needed support.

As Garner put it in a video about the JROTC program, Dowdy “evolved from just being a basic cadet to being a battalion commander, which is the top of a 160-person program. This took a lot and she learned those things from other people as well as developing within herself.”

Dowdy knows her competitive nature pushed her forward, and suspects her willingness to speak her mind has always been an attribute, despite what those elementary school progress reports might have said about it.

“I definitely talked too much in class,” she laughs. “But sometimes that emerges into something that can be of great value when you’re older.”

Dowdy has plans for the future, to get her law degree, to advocate for others, and maybe even to run for office someday. But it all boils down to this:

“I want to be a great contributing member to society and to help out other citizens by using my voice,” she said. “I want to be a voice for people who don’t know how to use their voices.”

That was true in the voting rights case, she said.

“Even with this case a lot of us weren’t too hopeful, but why not try?” she said. “At least you try. Because then if you try, you have it on your conscience that you put your best foot forward. You didn’t just sit back and leave things the way that they were.”

It is the story of her life. So far. But it also served as a lesson for her.

“It just gives me hope,” she said. “Don’t count yourself out. Even if it does seem like it’s a reach and not obtainable, be willing to put your name out there … so that people are aware of the issues and we know what we’re working on and where we need to go.”

Evan Milligan, the lead plaintiff in the voting rights case, said Dowdy has proven herself over and over again in military, family and democracy leadership.

“She’s even finding time to coach high school track athletes and serve women in her sorority battling severe illness,” he said. “And she does all that because she knows what it’s like to need help and come up short. Rather than be jaded by what her family experienced, she wants to empower others.”

You know what?

Maybe that really is the American Dream.

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for AL.com.