WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris is preparing to deliver the opening remarks at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, becoming the first Black and South Asian woman to lead a major party. Her nomination has strengthened a powerful and true voting bloc in the Democratic Party — Black women.
Since President Joe Biden he withdrew last month his re-election race and named Harris as his running mate, her campaign quickly grew he won the necessary number of delegate votesraised over $300 million and mobilized the Democratic base. Black women played an crucial role in this rapid mobilization.
Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, told States Newsroom that Harris is benefiting not only from an influx of cash but also from an army of volunteers.
Dan Kanninen, campaign director for key battleground states, told reporters in slow July that more than 360,000 volunteers had signed up to knock on doors, collect signatures and make phone calls.
“What we’ve seen over the last few weeks is an influx of resources that will allow Harris to run as effective a mobilization campaign as she possibly can,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie said all of this is key to hosting a competitive race, especially in the all-important state of Georgia.
In the state, the work of Black women to encourage turnout and voter registration was credited with flipping the state blue for Biden in 2020. The victory sent two Democratic U.S. senators to Congress, solidifying a divided Senate where Harris was decisive and the Democratic majority confirmed multiple federal judges to lifetime appointments — as well as the first Black woman appointed to the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Cook Political Report with Amy Walters moved Georgia from “modest Republican” to “uncertain” after Harris entered the presidential race with a 1 percentage point lead over her GOP opponent, former President Donald Trump. By comparison, Biden was 2.5 percentage points behind Trump in the Peach State.
Keneshia Grant, an assistant professor of political science at Howard University in Washington, said that when Biden announces for the first time that he is resigning July 21 under pressure It was not immediately clear from party leaders after his disastrous performance in the debate that Harris would be next in line. It took Biden a little more than 30 minutes to endorse her as his chosen successor.
Days before Biden announced his decision, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina urged the party to unite around Harrisif Biden were no longer on the ballot. Clyburn played a key role in securing black support for Biden in 2020 and remains a close Biden ally.
“We should do everything we can to support her, whether she comes in second or first,” he said of Harris.
Grant said Black women — often referred to as the backbone of the Democratic Party — have sent a message to key party members that “leaving out this Black woman at this point will not be tolerated.”
Within hours of Biden dropping out of the race, a Zoom call was held with #WinWithBlackWomen organizers attracted over 90,000 participants and raised more than $1.3 million to support Harris’ bid.
“The (Democratic) Party may not be comfortable with the idea of a black woman president right now, but people clearly have a different opinion and a different perspective on it,” Grant said.
The Influence of the Divine Nine
As a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the first black sorority founded in 1908 at Howard University, Harris has an untapped resource “The Divine Nine”“– Black student organizations, consisting of four sororities and five fraternities.
Deborah Elizabeth Whaley, a professor of African-American studies at the University of Iowa, said black sororities and fraternities were more than just a social group. She added that they were at the forefront of civil rights issues such as the suffrage movement and anti-lynching legislation.
“The whole idea is that we come together in the name of service, to help black communities and also to support academic excellence,” Whaley said.
As soon as Harris entered the race for first place, the Divine Nine, which has more than 2 million members, sprang into action.
“One of the things that black sororities and fraternities are known for is voter registration,” Whaley said.
The National Pan-Hellenic Council, Inc. — the governing body of the Divine Nine — announced that it would undertake a major mobilization campaign for voter turnout. Because the groups are nonprofits, they cannot endorse any candidate and must remain nonpartisan.
“This campaign will mobilize thousands of chapters and members across our organizations to ensure high voter turnout in the communities we serve,” the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Inc. said in a statement.
The Harris Association, AKA, formed its own political action committee on August 9. according to ProPublica Federal Election Commission Tracking.
Whaley said she wasn’t surprised that Harris had prioritized the inclusion of black student associations, as exemplified by her visit to Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana when she was the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate in slow July.
“We know that when we organize, mountains move,” Harris told the more than 6,000 sisters in the sorority. “When we mobilize, nations change. And when we vote, we make history.”
Whaley said black student associations are “a testing ground where you learn to serve your community, be a leader, and function effectively in a world where you are a member of an extremely marginalized group and a gender minority.”
Another melody
During Harris’ first visit to the campaign headquarters in Delaware, before she addressed staff, the song she left to was Beyoncé’s “Freedom.”
This is the song he plays during all his campaign stops and, according to CNNBeyoncé has given permission for the campaign to operate the song “Lemonade” from her 2016 Grammy-nominated album.
Grant noted that by choosing this particular Beyoncé song, it not only sends a message to voters that Harris, at 59, is the younger candidate — compared to Trump, who is 78 — but also moves away from a slogan invented by the former first lady Michelle Obama at the 2016 Democratic National Convention: “When They Go Low, We Go High.”
“From what I see from the campaign and her attitude, she’s not saying, ‘When you go low, I go low,’ but she’s saying … ‘When you go low, at least we’ll pay you back for it,'” Grant said.
The song choice did not escape the attention of Kinitra Brooks, assistant professor and the Audrey and John Leslie Chair in Literary Studies in the Department of English at Michigan State University.
Brooks, who co-edited a collection of essays on Beyoncé’s “Lemonade,” said the song is about more than just breaking chains — it’s about “the price of freedom.”
“It takes hard work to achieve freedom, but it also takes hard work to maintain it,” she said. “I think that leads to the conversations we’re having about rolling back rights.”
As Harris embarked on a lightning campaign in battleground states, Arizona, GeorgiaNevada and Pennsylvania, described her campaign as a “fight for the future” and accused the Trump campaign of focusing on the past.
“Across our country, we are witnessing a full-blown assault on hard-won freedoms and fundamental rights,” Harris said at an Aug. 10 news conference. Election rally in Las Vegas, Nevada“We’re not going back.”
