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Former Vice President Kamala Harris received a hero’s welcome at the NAACP Image Awards over the weekend. And when given center stage, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee issued warnings about Donald Trump’s administration and instructions on how to survive it.
Harris attended the annual event, hosted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, alongside her husband, former second gentleman Doug Emhoff. In her acceptance speech for the group’s prestigious Chairman’s Award, Harris didn’t mention Trump or his powerful right-wing allies — like Elon Musk — by name, but there were moments in which it seemed clear they were her target.
“We have no illusions about what we are up against in this chapter in our American story,” she said, adding this chapter will be written by the people — not “simply by whoever occupies the Oval Office nor by the wealthiest among us.”
She spoke about the “shadows over our democracy,” the “flames on our horizons” and the “rising waters in our cities” in a seeming reference to the pall Trump has cast over American politics, even as some states deal with the fallout from disasters like wildfires and floods. But she circled back to her theme of urgency in quoting one of the NAACP’s founding members: the scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois: “It is today that our best work can be done, and not some future day or future year.”
Harris’ words were essential for the time we’re enduring. Indeed, many Americans are frightened as they watch the Trump administration gutting the federal government and running roughshod over civil rights. And they may be equally frightened to see some American institutions appearing to capitulate to a wannabe “king.” But for the time being, the people — not the institutions or the illiberal leaders trying to lean on them — still wield the most power to determine the fate of the United States.
Watch Harris’ speech here: