While the first night of the Democratic National Convention continued well past 11 p.m., the energy at the United Center in Chicago never flagged.
Cheers that “we’re not going back” erupted periodically throughout the evening on Monday, and attendees positioned themselves to get a glimpse of the speakers.
“It was pretty lengthy and a good kick-off, but I definitely love that Kamala Harris was in the building,” Latoya Floyd, a Washington, D.C., resident, told Capital B, referring to Harris’ surprise appearance. “The anticipation is building. We’re already amped. We’re already self-motivated just to be here.”
In one of the last high-profile moments of his decades-long political career, President Joe Biden closed out the night by rallying behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
But what really stood out were the speeches from the Democratic Party’s Black leadership that bluntly described what “Donald Trump’s America” could look like and why voters can’t afford to sit out this presidential election.
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of California connected our past and our present, arguing that Harris is continuing the work of Black women such as Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights legend from Mississippi who gave a rousing speech at the DNC in 1964 and fought for Black equality.
“Kamala has been a courtroom prosecutor, a district attorney, an attorney general, a United States senator, vice president of the United States. When the dust settles in November and Americans of all stripes have elected her president, I know that she will be thinking about Fannie Lou,” Waters said.
She went on, adding, “In that moment, all of us, from New York to Pennsylvania to Arizona to California — we can ask ourselves, ‘Is this America?’ And we will be able to say loudly and proudly, ‘You’re damn right it is.’”
But U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas — whose star continues to rise on the Oversight Committee with her public feuds with people such as U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — made the most forceful case for why Harris is the only one qualified to win the White House in November.
“Let’s compare their resumes, shall we? One candidate worked at McDonald’s while she was in college at an HBCU,” she said. “The other was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and helped his daddy in the family business — housing discrimination, that is. She became a career prosecutor, while he became a career criminal.”
As if that weren’t blunt enough, Crockett summarized, “Kamala Harris has a resume. Donald Trump has a rap sheet.”
Crockett, who was a public defender, received a standing ovation after she shared how Harris welcomed her when she came to Congress.
“When I first got to Congress, I wasn’t sure I made the right decision,” Crockett said. “That chaos caucus couldn’t elect a speaker and the Oversight Committee was unhinged.”
Read More: The Sense of Urgency to Protect and Elect Kamala Harris
Later, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia seemingly turned the podium into his pulpit and underscored the importance of protecting access to the ballot box.
The senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta won his runoff election on Jan. 5, 2021. Within 24 hours, insurrectionists laid siege to the U.S. Capitol. They hoped to overturn the 2020 presidential election after Trump’s allies fabricated lies about voter fraud in heavily Black cities.
“Behind the ‘Big Lie’ was an even bigger lie — it is the lie that this increasingly diverse American electorate does not get to determine the future of the country,” Warnock said. “The lie and the logic of Jan. 6 is a sickness. It is a kind of cancer that metastasized into voter suppression laws all across the country.”
Biden determined to move America forward
The night was a prelude to Thursday, when Harris will formally accept the nomination, and Biden’s speech was hopeful.
“I’ve been determined to keep America moving forward, not going back, to stand against hate and violence in all of its forms, to be a nation where we not only live with but thrive on diversity, demonizing no one, leaving no one behind,” Biden said.
He reminded the crowd about why he decided to run against Trump in 2020. He recalled the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017 — the tiki torches that echoed the terror of the Ku Klux Klan.
“Hate was on the march in America — old ghosts in new garments, stirring up the oldest divisions, stoking the oldest fears,” Biden said.
And he reiterated that he’s fulfilled the pledges he made.
Read More: Has Biden Kept His Campaign Promises to Black Americans? The Answer Is Complicated.
“I’ve kept my commitment to having an administration that looks like America, that taps into the full talent of our nation, the most diverse Cabinet in history, including the first Black woman and woman of South Asian descent to serve as vice president — who will soon serve as the 47th president of the United States,” Biden said.
Since Harris replaced Biden at the top of the party’s ticket, voters and observers have noted similarities between the enthusiasm that she has generated and the energy of 2008, when Barack Obama, the charismatic U.S. senator from Illinois, pulled off a historic victory.
On Tuesday, Obama is scheduled to take the stage, where he’ll presumably reflect on how he changed the voting landscape — and how Harris seems to be doing the same.
Capital B staff writer Calvin Davis contributed to this report from Chicago.
This story has been updated.
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