Vice President Kamala Harris made history when she formally accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for U.S. president on Thursday, Aug 22, the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations, a president who leads and listens; who is realistic, practical and has common sense; and always fights for the American people,” Harris said.
In what was described as the most important speech of her political career, Harris, the daughter of immigrants, talked about her parents and how they both shaped her as a child.
“She taught us to never complain about injustice but do something about it,” Harris said of her mother, a cancer researcher who immigrated to America from India. She died at age 70 in 2009.
Her father, an economist from Jamaica, encouraged her to “Don’t let anything stop you.”
Harris outlined her vision for America, a future she said would be different from former President Donald Trump, who is running for president as the Republican Party nominee.
“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she said. “But the consequences — but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”
To roars of the crowd of delegates and spectators in the at-capacity arena where the Chicago Bulls play, Harris said, “America, we are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back.”
If she wins in November against Trump, Harris would be the first woman and first Black and Asian woman to be president of the United States.
Copy edited by Vanessa Orozco