Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the NAACP convention in Atlantic City on issues ranging from Roe v Wade and abortion access to gun control, Civil and Voting rights, and the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader
Air Force Two landed at about 10:35 a.m at the Atlantic City International Airport and Harris was greeted there by Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small, and the media.
Upon taking the podium at the Atlantic City Convention Center in downtown Atlantic City, the vice president thanked NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson for his public service, and his commitment to furthering Civil Rights.
"President Johnson, thank you for your years of dedicated partnership and leadership," said Harris to a wealth of applause, adding that Johnson has stood tall "on the issue of voting rights and so many more issues that challenge our nation and its people."
The vice president's speech to convention delegates touched on Civil and voting rights, and gun control, as well as women's rights, the country's first Black and first female vice president also participating in a round table discussion on abortion access and women's reproductive freedoms with some 20 New Jersey state lawmakers.That discussion, which was also part of Monday's NAACP convention forum, comes in the wake of the Supreme Court's June 24 decision that overturned Roe v Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that made abortion legal nationwide.
In assessing and upholding a Mississippi state law that makes abortion illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the nation's high court, in Dobbs vs Jackson Heath Organization, knocked down Roe v Wade and relegated authority on whether to outlaw abortion, or to restrict it, to the respective state legislatures
A former California attorney general and U.S. Senator-turned vice president, Harris called the Supreme Court's controversial decision to overturn Roe v Wade "deeply harmful to our nation."
While her speech was laced with references to Roe v Wade, the vice president also said that Congress must be more aggressive in fighting gun violence and that state legislatures nationwide must also step up to address the growing epidemic that disproportionately impacts America's Black community.
"We must repeal the liability shield that protects gun manufacturers and we must renew the assault weapons ban," said Harris, who has appeared before the Civil Rights group several times, but for the first time as vice president on Monday.
She talked about poverty, racism, and the lyching of Black people on American soil. She said that the longstanding fight by the NAACP and other Civil Rights organizations to make lynching a federal crime paid off in the long run.
"Even though it took a staggering 122 years to finally make lynching a federal crime," the vice president said regarding the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, a landmark federal law passed by Congress in March and President Biden's signature legislation. "But, it must be said, even though it took that long, the NAACP was never deterred and was always determined."
Harris was at ease at the NAACP event before the same organizational leaders who had championed her run for vice president in 2020 after pressuring President Biden to make due on his campaign promise to invite a Black woman to run on his presidential ticket as vice president. And Biden did just that, selecting Harris from among a cadre of qualified Black women vice presidential hopefuls, including former Atlanta Mayor Keesha Lance Bottoms, who is now a senior advisor to the president, former California congresswoman Karen Bass, and former U.S. national security advisor and prior ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.
The vice president concluded her speech by telling the convention delegates that while much has been accomplished for Black people, there is much more work that needs to be done.
"So leaders of the NAACP, together we have accomplished much, but we still have much to do," she said.
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