Oprah Winfrey, the Queen of daytime TV who united Americans in front of their screens for decades, once again brought the nation together during the Unite for America event in support of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. “This people-powered movement behind Kamala Harris has unleashed a unifying force unlike anything we’ve seen in politics in a very long time,” Winfrey said.
The star-studded event held in the battleground state of Michigan, with an in-person audience of 400 and nearly 300,000 virtual viewers, aimed to build on the momentum of the first Win With Black Women fundraising call that amassed an astonishing $1.6 million in a matter of hours after the July announced that Harris would succeed President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for president.
Its success led to fundraising calls with dozens of other groups, including Win With Black Men, White Dudes for Harris and Cat Ladies for Kamala, breaking fundraising records along the way. Unite for America was inspired by a conversation between Oprah and the founder of Win With Black Women, Jotaka Eaddy. Reflecting on the essential role Black women have played in getting the country to this point, Eaddy said, “I just think that it is an honor for all of us to be able to usher in this moment knowing that those who watered this mighty field are now allowing us to eat of the fruit.”
While the latest Pew poll shows Black women are largely supporting Harris at 87%, support among Black men is a bit weaker. Eighty percent plan to vote for VP Harris, while 17% say they will cast their ballot for Trump. Oprah said she’d heard from several Black men who are voting for Trump because of the stimulus checks they received during the pandemic.
Khalil Thompson, founder of Win With Black Men, set the record straight: “Congress paid for the check…45 just signed it.” While he acknowledged that people needed to make their own decisions, his choice was clear: “I don’t want someone with 34 convictions. I don’t want someone who is going to choose hate over choosing the best possible way to unite us as a country. So I see Vice President Harris as being the best person.”
Voters across the country have expressed concerns about several issues, among them abortion, immigration, the state of the economy, and gun violence. Unite for America kept those issues front and center, which led to some very emotional moments during the event.
On abortion rights, there was the heartbreaking story of 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman from Georgia, who was a single mother to a six-year-old son and sought an abortion when she found out she was pregnant with another child. Since abortion is illegal in Georgia, she drove to North Carolina, where she was given abortion medication. After Thurman got back to Georgia, she became very ill, and it turned out she hadn’t fully expelled the fetus and needed what’s known as a dilation and curettage (D&C).
Doctors waited 20 hours before giving her one due to the state’s strict abortion ban, and she died. Thurman’s mother, who only recently learned from Propublica reporting that her death was preventable, said, “Amber was not a statistic, she was loved by a family, a strong family, and we would have done whatever to get my baby, our baby, the help that she needed.” In a deeply moving moment that left many in the audience weeping, Thurman’s mother continued, “You’re looking at a mother who is broken. The worst pain ever that a mother, that a parent, could ever feel, her father and myself and her family, you’re looking at it.”
VP Harris reiterated her support for abortion rights, calling it “healthcare,” and said when it comes to a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body, “one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do.”
In another poignant moment, the audience witnessed the human toll that gun violence is having on our nation’s children. Oprah shared that 383,000 children had been exposed to gun violence, and she introduced the audience to one such child, Natalie Griffith, and her parents, Doug and Marilda. Natalie, who was still bandaged up from the bullet wounds she suffered in the Apalachee High School shooting this month, sat next to her mom, Marilda who shared the anguish she felt when she found out her daughter’s school was the site of yet another school shooting while she had no idea whether her daughter was dead or alive “you don’t know what it feels like until it’s you.” In a tearful plea, Marilda urged immediate action on stopping gun violence “we cannot let this go on,” she said.
VP Harris, who has been a staunch supporter of gun control and co-sponsored a bill to ban assault weapons as a California senator, said, “I’ve seen autopsies. I’ve seen what these weapons do to the human body and we’ve got to agree that, particularly assault weapons… it has no place on the streets of civil society. It’s designed to kill a lot of human beings quickly.” She also reiterated her support for the second amendment and was clear that as a gun owner she was not trying to take everyone’s guns away.
On the subject of the economy, which is one area where Trump continues to lead VP Harris in the polls, Harris vowed to create an “opportunity” economy where people would have help to reach their financial goals. For example, she wants to combat price gouging, give first time homebuyers $25,000 in downpayment assistance, provide small business owners with a $50,000 tax deduction (up from the $5000 available now) so they can grow their business, and extend the child tax credit to $6000 in a baby’s first year.
Immigration is another area where Trump leads in the polls—despite his elevation of the despicable rumor that Haitian migrants are stealing and eating people’s pets. VP Harris pointed out that the bipartisan border bill that she supported would have provided more border patrol agents, asylum officers and immigration judges as well as stemmed the flow of fentanyl coming across the border but it never passed because Donald Trump encouraged Republican legislators not to vote for it. Harris said it was “because he’d rather run on a problem than fix the problem,” but if she’s elected president, she’d sign the bill into law.
Ultimately, however, Harris cast the stakes of this election as much bigger than her or one particular stance. It’s about “fundamental freedoms,” she continued. There’s so much at stake in this election, and ultimately, the question before us is, what kind of country do we want to live in? And the beauty of democracy—as long as we can hold on to it—the beauty of the democracy is each of us has the power to answer that question.”
