Remarks at the 2024 Democratic National Convention – Aug. 19, 2024

Hello, delegates!

Now, you know I've seen a lot in my lifetime. I was just 22 years old when Fanny Lou Hamer made her presence known at another Democratic convention.

It was in 1964 in Atlantic City, and she arrived with a group of black delegates from Mississippi [cheers] and she simply asked, she simply asked that her delegates be seated in place of the state's all white delegation.

She told the people in the room about the violence she suffered at the hands of white police because she, a black woman had, demanded her right to vote. When she finished, she asked the country a simple but profound question—is this America?

She didn't get the outcome she was hoping for in Atlantic City, but you can bet that when the official Mississippi delegation was seated at the convention four years later, Fanny Lou Hamer was sitting there with them. [cheers]

Now here we are, here we are, 60 years later at another Democratic convention with Kamala Harris—Kamala Harris!—as our party's nominee. [cheers]

Oh, so I know there is no better leader to marshal us into the future. Kamala has been a courtroom prosecutor, a district attorney, an attorney general, a United States senator, vice president of the United States. And when the dust settles in November and Americans of all stripes have elected her their president, I know she'll be thinking about Fanny Lou, who I happen to know is one of Kamala’s heroes.

In that moment, all of us, all of us from New York to Pennsylvania to Arizona to California, [cheers] we can ask ourselves, is this America? And we will be able to say loudly and proudly, you're damn right it is! [cheers]

PBS NewsHour. “WATCH: Rep. Maxine Waters speaks at 2024 Democratic National Convention | Night 1.” YouTube video, 3:11. Aug. 19, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPGDSWHE9g8