Vice President Kamala Harris officially accepted the nomination to become the party’s presidential candidate on Thursday, before thousands of Democrats the final day was the cap on of the Democratic National Convention.
“In my entire career, I have only had one client— the people, and so on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks…. And everyone who has set out on their unlikely journey, on behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with who work hard, chase their dreams and look out for one another, on behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination to be President of the United States, Harris said.
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Harris delivered a simple message to Americans: You don’t have to live like this anymore. She offered voters a clean break from the Trump era and its grinding uncertainty and political upheaval.
“We are not going back,” Harris said, repeatedly, as she and others – including the chanting thousands inside the United Center – have done since she became the presumptive nominee. But as much as the slogan is a rebuke of Trump’s policies and a promise of progressive change, it also resonates more narrowly as an assurance for the immediate term.
The ground-breaking was like the nominee herself – the first woman of colour to become a major party’s presidential nominee.
“Never let anyone tell you who you are,” Ms Harris said. “You show them who you are.”
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During her speech, Harris got personal, she talked about how her father, economist Donald Harris, encouraged her to run free on the playground when her mother cautioned her to be careful. She told the audience about her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a biomedical scientist who wanted to cure breast cancer and raised her two daughters after her divorce. And she talked about the tight-knit community that helped raise her and her sister, Maya.
“My mother was a brilliant, five foot tall, brown woman with an accent, and as the eldest child, I saw how the world would sometimes treat her,” Harris said. “But my mother never lost her cool.”
Harris again recalled a childhood experience that helped shape her career path. In high school, her friend Wanda Kagan confided in Harris that she was being sexually abused by her stepfather, Harris said that her friend should stay with her family.
“This is one of the reasons I became a prosecutor, to protect people like Wanda,” she said.
One of the highlights of the night was Harris’ two young grandnieces, Amara and Leela Ajagu — with an assist from actress Kerry Washington — appearing onstage to send a message to teach people how to pronounce ‘Kamala’ It’s so easy that children can do it.
“First you say a comma, like a comma in a sentence,” Amara said.
“Then you said la, like la, la, la, la, la,” Leela added in a sing-song voice.
