An excerpt from VP Harris’s speech to the NAACP

(Courtesy of Whitehouse.gov)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Register to vote and then vote. (Laughs.) (Applause.)

And, again, let me thank the leaders who are here. Just let us reflect on what the folks here accomplished in 2020. We were in the height of a pandemic. There was an extraordinary amount of loss: loss of life, loss of community, loss of normalcy, people lost their jobs.

And in the midst of all of that, the leaders who are here gathered the courage and the optimism to talk with neighbors and friends and relatives and colleagues, and to remind them of the power of their voice through their vote, and achieved historic outcomes.

We had a record voter turnout for African Americans in 2020. We had a record turnout of their civic responsibility and duty. Let us also mention the hypocrisy. Don’t these people really believe the words about “love thy neighbor”? now capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for our seniors. (Applause.)

Because of that election and people voted, we have now capped the annual cost of prescrip- will now get rid of all lead pipes in America over the next eight years. (Applause.)

Before, our small businesses, which are part of the lifeblood—the economic lifeblood, the cultural lifeblood—of our communities, were saying…, for minority-owned businesses, it’s hard to get access to capital. But because people voted and said small businesses are a priority, we have now, since we’ve been in office, increased to the highest rate the number of small businesses that have been created in any two-year period. And Black businesses are helping to propel those numbers. (Applause.)

The work we’ve done has been about saying that we need to hear the cries of families who know that the United States of America, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, has…one of the highest rates of

Biden: “Time to reflect and repair”

President Biden’s appearance and remarks at the Truman Civil Rights Symposium may not have received headline treatment by the mainstream press, but it was one of his most important speeches on the accomplishments of minorities in the military.

Since the event last Thursday was hosted by the Truman Library Institute in D.C., he praised Truman for passing Executive Order 9981, which prohibited discrimination in the military based on race, color, religion, or national origin. He also used the occasion to chastise Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and the GOP for not allowing numerous military promotions to pass as retribution for the Defense Department allowing paid leave for abortions.

Biden made special mention of the heroic deeds of the Harlem Hellfighters during World War I, “an all-Black regiment that spent 191 days on the front, longer than any unit of its size in history.” They, he said, were a link “in a distinguished line of ancestors and descendants, enslaved and free, risking their lives in every war since our founding for ideals they hadn’t fully known on American soil: equality.”

He cited the combat bravery and success of the Tuskegee Airmen, who flew “more than 15,000 sorties into battle.” Among the long line of African Americans who have been outstanding in their service to the nation, he invoked Lloyd Austin, a decorated four-star general and “the first-ever Black Secretary of Defense. He wanted to be here tonight, but he’s traveling to the Indo-Pacific to strengthen our security ties in the region.”

In concluding his salute to Black soldiers, Biden said, “Let me close with this: In June 1865, a major general from the Union Army arrived in Galveston, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and free the last enslaved Americans from bondage.” He reflected on what is now the Juneteenth holiday, the first “federal holiday since Dr. Martin Luther King Day, nearly 40 years ago...To think enslaved people remained shackled two years after the Emancipation. To think how many long nights they looked at the light of the North Star to keep the faith that despite America’s original sin of slavery, this nation could be saved.”

He said it was time for us “to reflect and to repair— and that process, Mr. President, begins with you.

Elinor R. Tatum: Publisher and Editor in Chief

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