VP Kamala Harris ends her campaign at Howard Univ.
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
A diverse group of supporters, family members, and well-known allies, including D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, NAACP President Derrick Johnson, a host of other elected officials, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, looked on as Vice President Kamala Harris emerged onto the stage at Howard University to the stirring strains of Beyoncé’s “Freedom.” Jeezy’s song “My President,” which features the stirring line “My president is Black,” energized the crowd before her entrance, setting the scene for a moving farewell speech. The atmosphere was charged as Harris began, looking out at a sea of American flags and expectant faces at her alma mater.
“Every one of us, no matter who we are or where we start out, has certain fundamental rights and freedoms that must be respected and upheld,” she stated, pausing as applause swelled from the crowd. Harris made it clear that while her campaign had reached its end, the fight for justice and equity was only beginning. “We will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts, and in the public square,” she affirmed, issuing a call to action that echoed her campaign’s spirit.
Harris addressed the emotions that many in the crowd were visibly grappling with. Speaking directly to the young people watching, she said, “It is OK to feel sad and disappointed, but please know it’s going to be OK… Sometimes the fight takes a while, that doesn’t mean we won’t win.” She reminded them, “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars,” a line that drew a mix of cheers and solemn nods as the crowd took in her message of resilience.
Reflecting on the campaign, Harris shared her pride in the coalition they had built. “We have been intentional about building community… bringing people together from every walk of life,” she said, emphasizing the need to accept the election results but with an eye to the future. “This is not a time to throw up our hands,” she declared, urging her supporters to channel their emotions into continued efforts. “This is a time to roll up our sleeves.”
Harris acknowledged the fight ahead, framing it not as a loss but as a turning point. “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” she said firmly. “That is a fight I will never give up.” She took a moment to express her gratitude to those who had stood by her side, including her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, and her vice presidential candidate, Tim Walz. “I am so proud of the race we ran and the way we ran it,” she said. Her voice cracked slightly as she added, “We owe loyalty not to a president or to a party but to the Constitution of the United States.”
She acknowledged her call to President-elect Donald Trump, stating that she offered assistance to him in the upcoming transition. She urged her supporters not to give up, and to keep fighting for the Constitution and Democracy.
As she neared the end of her speech, Harris’s words took on an unmistakable urgency. “The fight for our freedom will take hard work, but like I always say, we like hard work,” she told the crowd. She urged them to continue engaging, reminding them that meaningful change requires sustained effort.
With a final, defiant wave, Harris walked off the stage arm in arm with Emhoff, her head held high as Beyoncé’s “Freedom” filled the air once more. Her last words: “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
President Biden and First Lady lay flowers at memorial to the shooting victims in Buffalo, NY
By Hazel Trice Edney
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – As President Joe Biden stood amidst the heartbroken in Buffalo, N.Y. calling White supremacy a “poison” in the U.S., historians and scholars of America’s racism not only agreed with him, but outlined specifically how America must change.
“The FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Justice Department have all confirmed that the primary domestic terrorism threat comes from racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists who advocate for the superiority of the white race,” writes the Southern Poverty Law Center, a foremost authority on hate in America, in response to the killing of 10 predominately Black shoppers by a White 18-year-old in Buffalo Saturday.
The President, accompanied by First Lady Jill Biden, flew into New York Tuesday operating in the roll of comforters-in-chief. According to an account from the White House, “the President and First Lady met with family members of the victims, law enforcement and first responders, and local leaders at a community center to offer their condolences and comfort to those affected by this tragedy.”
He declared in a speech: “What happened here is simple and straightforward: Terrorism. Terrorism. Domestic terrorism…Violence inflicted in the service of hate and the vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior to any other group.”
The killer, Payton Gendron, went into the TOPS grocery store where predominately Black family members did their regular shopping on a daily basis. On Saturday, people were preparing for Sunday dinners, birthday parties or just stopping by the store for snacks and supplies. Gendron shot people in the parking lot on the way in and then proceeded to fire the gun inside, killing more people with a rifle speckled with writing, including racial slurs.
Before he was arrested, he had killed 10 people and injured three others. According to widespread reports, a manager had asked Gendron to leave the store the day before the killings as he loitered inside. He was also investigated by state police less than a year ago after authorities at his high school reported that he made threatening remarks concerning a murder/suicide. He was then examined by a mental hospital but was not charged.
On Tuesday, Biden called on the community to support the victims and survivors and to take action to prevent future tragedies. Namely, he called on Americans to reject the racist white “replacement theory” believed to have inspired the gunman behind the tragic Buffalo shooting and other shootings.
According to a statement by the SPLC, “the attack in Buffalo is the direct result of white nationalist propaganda, specifically the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, being promoted and now mainstreamed by major public figures. This false notion — that white people are being systematically replaced by Black people, immigrants and Jews — has deep historical roots but has gained traction in recent years. And with that traction has come violence, both physical and political.”
The SPLC statement continues, “In recent years we have seen multiple white gunmen commit horrific acts of violence against people of color, Jews, Muslims and immigrants, justified on the premise of the false conspiracy narrative. This time it took an 18-year-old extremist driving over 200 miles to murder 10 innocent people and injure three others – the vast majority who were Black – to bring this lie and its deadly consequences to the national forefront.”
Biden’s appeal for Americans to take stands against White supremacy and to speak up against the wrong of racism, is not enough, he said.
The SPLC agrees. The organization made several recommendations to end the repeated terrorist attacks:
•”It is especially important that politicians, civic leaders and law enforcement officials repudiate dangerous and false conspiracy theories like the ‘great replacement’ theory, which has now moved from far-right extremist spaces into the political mainstream. Despite its clearly violent implications, far too many politicians and pundits now repeat the myth regularly.”
•”Federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, should provide more resources for programs and processes for early intervention. Programs in these areas should focus on extended support for victims, survivors and targeted communities more broadly, as the trauma resulting from racially motivated violence often reverberates widely.”
•”Congress should immediately enact the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (S.964/H.R. 350) to establish offices within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to monitor, investigate and prosecute cases of domestic terrorism — and require regular reports from these offices.”
•”Tech companies must create — and enforce — terms of service and policies to ensure that social media platforms, payment service providers and other internet-based services do not provide forums where hateful activities and extremism can grow and lead to domestic terrorism. Social media platforms and online payment service providers must act to disrupt the funding of hate online to prevent their services from helping to incubate and bankroll terrorists and extremism,” The SPLC recommended.
Meanwhile, in Buffalo, Biden read off the names of each of the dead, giving brief descriptions of their errands that day or something about their lives: As a nation, I say to the families: We remember them. We’ve been reading about them. We visited the memorial where…the show of the love for them.:
•“Celestine Chaney, 65 years old. Brain cancer survivor. Churchgoer. Bingo player. Went to buy strawberries to make her favorite shortcake. A loving mother and a grandmother.”
•“Roberta Drury, 32. Beloved daughter and sister. Moved back home to help take care of her brother after his bone marrow transplant. She went to buy groceries for dinner. The center of attention who made everyone in the room laugh and smile when she walked in.”
•Andre Mackneil, 53. Worked at a restaurant. Went to buy his three-year-old son a birthday cake. His son [celebrating] a birthday, asking, “Where is Daddy?”• Katherine Massey, 72. A writer and an advocate who dressed up in costumes at schools and cut the grass in the parkand helping local elections. The glue of the family and the community.
•Margus Morrison, 52. School bus aide. Went to buy snacks for weekly movie night with the family. Survived by his wife and three children and his stepdaughter. The center of their world.
•Heyward Patterson, 67. Father. Church deacon. Fed the homeless at the soup kitchen. Gave rides to the grocery store to neighbors who needed help. Putting food in the trunk of others when he took his final breath.
•Aaron Salter, 55. Retired Buffalo police officer for three decades. Three decades. Loved electric cars. A hero who gave his life to save others on a Saturday afternoon. And had that man not been wearing that vest that he purchased – bulletproof vest – a lot of lives would have been saved. A beloved father and husband.
•Geraldine Talley, 62. Expert [baker]. And known for her warm, gentle personality. A friend to everybody. Devoted mother and grandmother.
•Ruth Whitfield, 88. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother who sang in the church choir. A caretaker of her husband, bringing him clean clothes, cutting his hair, holding his hand every day she visited him in the nursing home. Heart as big as her head.
•Pearl Young, 77. A mother, grandmother, missionary of God. Public school teacher who also ran a local food pantry. Loved singing, dancing, and her family.
Biden continued, “And all three are injured: Zaire Goodman, 20. Shot in the neck but fighting through it. Jennifer Warrington, 50. Christopher Braden, 55. Both treated with injuries, on a long road to recovery.”
The President concluded, “Jill and I bring you this message from deep in our nation’s soul: In America, evil will not win — I promise you. Hate will not prevail. And white supremacy will not have the last word.”
