Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday sounded an alarm for a woman’s right to choose and the ability to vote and against gun violence, as she urged members of the NAACP’s national convention in Atlantic City to protect hard-fought constitutional guarantees she warned are now being eroded.
“Freedom and liberty and democracy are on the ballot, and we have to make sure our voices are heard,” she said, in a speech clearly aimed at laying out what was at stake in the coming 2022 midterm elections.
The vice president’s speech was part of an effort to highlight the accomplishments of President Joe Biden’s administration over the past two years. Harris, the first woman and first person of color to serve as vice president, spoke of economic inequities that still fall disproportionately on Black communities and women.
“We see and are prepared to address the disparities that are holding so many people back in our nation — disparities that we see in education, in economic opportunity, in housing, healthcare, and more,” she said.
She talked of educational opportunities that are not accessible to all children and noted the lack of proper health care that still has an unequal impact on so many people.
“Today, in America, Black women are three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes. Native American women are more than twice as likely to die,” she said. “Rural women are more than one and a half times more likely to die. So we have elevated, for an obvious reason, the issue of maternal health so it will be a national priority.”
But it was guns, abortion and voting rights that was at the forefront of her concerns as she spoke to a large crowd in Atlantic City.
MORE COVERAGE: NAACP national convention comes to N.J. with America at a ‘crossroads’
She recalled a recent funeral she attended in Buffalo for a grandmother gunned down amid a racist mass shooting that killed 10 people and injured three others at a supermarket. She spoke of a visit she made to Highland Park in Illinois, “where there were strollers and lawn chairs were scattered up and down the street where there was supposed to be a parade.”
Scenes of ordinary life in America have been turned into “horrific scenes of violence,” said Harris, declaring that the need for reasonable gun safety laws is a civil rights issue.
“Today we have more guns in our nation than people,” she said. “We need to do more.”
The vice president called for the repeal of the liability shield that protects gun manufacturers, as well as the renewal of the assault weapons ban.
Assault weapons, she noted, are designed to kill a lot of human beings quickly.
“There is no reason for weapons of war on the streets of America,” said Harris.
Our fight for reproductive rights is not only on the national level, but on the state and local. I’m in New Jersey to meet with state legislators who have passed laws to protect the right to reproductive health care and the right of health care providers to provide services.
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 18, 2022
The vice president, who has been traveling across the country in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision that ruled the Constitution does not guarantee the right to an abortion — meeting with various state legislators at the White House, in Orlando, Florida, and in Philadelphia — also decried that decision.
Harris told convention delegates steps must be taken to protect fundamental freedoms, “including the freedom for a woman to make decisions about her own body.”
Sharply criticizing the court, which she noted once held legendary NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall — who argued the landmark Brown V. Board of Education case before the court that desegregated the schools of America — Harris said this court had taken away a long recognized constitutional right.
“Today, extremists, so-called leaders, are criminalizing doctors and punishing women for making health care decisions on her own,” the vice president said of the scramble in a growing number of Republican-led states to impose draconian abortion laws in the wake of the court decision.
At the same time, she said those same people are passing laws to restrict the ability of people to vote.
“Undemocratic laws. Un-American laws,” said Harris, adding that the nation’s freedoms are connected to each other.
Harris said the freedom to vote is the freedom that unlocks all others, calling for the passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, both locked up by a Republican filibuster in the U.S. Senate.
“We must with a sense of urgency ensure that the American people know that their vote matters,” the vice president said.
Harris, who flew into Atlantic City International Airport, where she landed aboard Air Force 2 after a short flight from Washington, D.C., was greeted upon her arrival by Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr.
Inside the city’s main convention hall, hundreds of people gathered before a stage lit up in electric blue, many of them holding up “This is Power” signs — this year’s theme. Others wore bright yellow shirts emblazoned with the same message. Some wore masks with messages on them, including “I will vote.”
NCAAP delegates during Vice President Kamala Harris' remarks in Atlantic City, Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Walking onto the stage wearing a cream-colored suit, Harris was immediately greeted with a standing ovation from the crowd. Attendees formed a line in the center isle to capture a better photo and or video.
A “proud member” of the historic Black fraternity, Alpha Kappa Alpha, or AKA, Harris was also greeted by fellow AKAs with their high-pitched “skee-wee” call, signaling their presence in the large hall.
Donna Eleazer, 61, of Roselle, said she felt Harris spoke about the all the relevant issues that are affecting the Black community today — in particular, her discussion about maternal health.
“We are not getting all the help that we need, and that’s why it’s so important,” she said.
NAACP Daytona Beach Branch President Cynthia Slater, 66, called Harris’ speech dynamic.
“t was something that needed to be said and what we needed to hear as delegates, so we can take it back to our units throughout the country,” she said. “The biggest thing is to get people out to vote, that it our goal and mission so we can change the landscape of what’s going on in this country.”
Elisabeth Martin, 21, a student at the University of Tennessee, had hoped Harris would have spoken more about canceling student debt.
“I understand she address a lot of the things that they’ve been doing in terms of gun control,” she said. But I think listening to what we are asking for, canceling student debt, that’s what the youth wants.”
While the NAACP is a non-partisan organization and does not endorse candidates for political office at any level, prominent political figures and elected officials have long had featured speaking roles at its national conventions.
Every presidential election, the NAACP said it extends invitations to both the Republican and Democratic nominees for president to address its membership during those gatherings. Past speakers have included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama, Sen. Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain, President George W. Bush, Vice President Al Gore and President Bill Clinton.
Even at the 1955 convention in Atlantic City, a year after the Brown V. Board of Education case, Republican Vice President Richard Nixon came to speak in support of the ruling — despite the Eisenhower administration’s less than enthusiastic response to the decision.
Harris met later in the day in a roundtable discussion with New Jersey state lawmakers and others regarding the protection of abortion rights, as well as contraception and emergency medical services, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial decision overturning the Roe v. Wade decision.
The vice president at the meeting said the fight for abortion rights was “not only a national one but a state one as well.”
And reiterating her concerns about the upcoming midterms, Harris said, “These elections will matter at every level.”
At the same time, she warned that the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization meant the justices would go after contraception and same-sex marriage later.
“It has wide-ranging impact,” she said of the decision. “We must understand what is at stake for all of us.”
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Staff writer Ted Sherman contributed to this report.
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @JDSalant.
Vashti Harris may be reached at vharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @HarrisVashti
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