CHICAGO — The emotion from Black women on the floor as Kamala Harris accepted her party’s presidential nomination were, in some ways, a manifestation of the sweat equity the key group has put in to create a Democratic Party that recognizes their contributions and their loyalty.
“This moment was built by Black women,” Glynda Carr, the the president, CEO and co-founder of the Higher Heights for America PAC, told NOTUS. “You go from a Fannie Lou Hamer who boldly testified before the Democratic convention, Shirley Chisholm entering her name into the nomination, and 52 years later, you have Kamala Harris stepping on the stage this week to shatter not the glass ceiling but a concrete ceiling that often times women of color and Black women face.”
That ceiling was halfway shattered when Harris said just a dozen words: I accept your nomination for president of the United States of America.
“It was an emotional speech for me as a Black woman legislator,” said Sheree Sample-Hughes, a Maryland delegate who saw that moment from the United Center’s floor. “People are looking through her in so many ways. She’s showing that there are these opportunities for women of color.”
And Harris understands the assignment bestowed upon her, said Sen. Laphonza Butler, the third Black woman to serve as a senator, as well as the weight of all those who came before her.
“She is obviously aware of the history she’s going to be making,” Butler said. “She holds in her heart the spirit of Fannie Lou Hamer and Shirley Chisholm — but she also holds the hopes and dreams of my daughter and her nieces. And she doesn’t want to let any of them down.”
Hamer’s and Chisholm’s names have been uttered often in the last four days, as Black elected officials and delegates paused to consider exactly what has happened after decades of struggle. From Hamer in 1964, who testified at the Democratic National Convention and met white backlash. Or from Chisholm, who took the next giant step, when she became the first Black woman to be elected to Congress in 1968 and later became the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“This is the one Shirley Chisholm fought for,” Rep. Barbara Lee told the Democratic Women’s Caucus Thursday morning, where many in the crowd wore white in homage to the suffragettes.
After the event, Lee spoke with NOTUS about her mentor and friend Chisholm, who Lee once worked for. Lee backed Harris early on in the vice president’s national political career. In 2019, she was the first member of the Congressional Black Caucus to endorse Harris for president, bucking the trend by many Black leaders to support her at-that-time rival Joe Biden
“I told her, ‘You’re going to be president one day,” Lee said. She had confidence in Harris that many others did not. Even as vice president, Harris had an overwhelming amount of critics, including those inside her own party.
At times, Harris’ allies saw her as the victim of the age-old Black spiritual that young Black women are told from generation to generation: You have to be twice as good to get half of what white people have. And if you falter for a moment, that could follow you for the rest of time.
“I think she was treated unfairly by the media,” said Rep. Jim Clyburn, a key Biden ally who is also a Harris supporter. “Some Democrats, too.”
But her aides spent years trying to rehabilitate her image, focusing on reconnecting with Harris’ longtime advocates and finding new ones in an attempt to build a firewall of support for when the detractors got too loud. And it was that firewall that was put to work after Biden’s debate in June, activated and waiting for the July moment when Biden decided to end his campaign.
“When Joe Biden called me that morning, read me his statement, I said to him at the time, ‘There’s something missing in this statement.’ And he knew what I meant. And he said to me at the time, ‘I will be issuing a second statement within the hour.’ And that was the statement endorsing her,” Clyburn said.
Black electeds and political operatives were quick to declare to all who would hear that if the Democratic Party skipped over Harris, it would be at its own peril.
“It’s important in politics to solidify your base early,” Lee said. “Black women solidified the base early. We circled the wagons, before others who wanted to get in,” she said, speaking of how Black women helped lay the foundation for Harris’ quick takeover of the Democratic Party.
“Thank goodness the Democratic Party finally came around,” Lee added.
“The heavens must have wanted to reward her for her sacrifice in the last campaign, because she wound up getting all the best luck,” said Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman elected to the Senate. “Not just Joe Biden deciding to anoint her, but also the support of the party.”
Sen. Laphonza Butler, the fourth Black woman to be sworn in as a senator and a close ally to the vice president, told NOTUS that Black women were responsible for this moment.
“From the group of Black women who demanded to have a Black woman as vice president, to the group of Black women who demanded the Supreme Court appointment, to the group of Black women who organized thousands all across the country. So is this the campaign that we were promised? I think it’s the campaign we demanded,” she said.
Black women’s political power first reached its zenith in 2020 after Black political operatives successfully pushed Biden to declare that he would select a Black woman as his running mate — a pressure campaign waged both in public and private meetings.
His decision to pick Harris as his vice president was a massive turnaround from just months earlier when she spectacularly flamed out of the presidential race before primary voting had even begun — even after a promising start that had once elicited comparisons to Barack Obama’s 2008 run.
If that change was a major departure, the difference from December 2019 to July 2024 is nearly incomprehensible. The Democratic Party is now remade in her image.
“I am finding energy and space and capacity I didn’t even know I had,” DNC chair Jaime Harrison told NOTUS. “Because I know it’s for her. Because I know how special it is for us, for our community.”
Harris accepting the nomination was the highest moment women like Lee had spent decades clawing for. The next step, of course, would be if Harris is successful in November. But for some like Moseley Braun, making it this far was enough.
“The story that inspired me to run was my little niece who was not 12 saying, ‘But Auntie Carol, all the presidents are boys.’ And I said, ‘Oh no sweetie, girls can be president too,’” she said, realizing afterward that she had just lied. “From here on in, little girls in kindergarten will think to aspire to the presidency of the United States. And that is a wonderful contribution that Kamala has already made, whether she wins or not.”
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Jasmine Wright is a reporter at NOTUS.