Black women rally for Harris-Walz ticket in Detroit

Updated 11:30 a.m. 8/13/24

“We ain’t going back,” U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said during a 20-minute address during a Harris-Walz rally in Detroit on Monday. 

The veteran U.S. House member told about 250 Black women at Detroit’s Garden Theater–an African American-owned venue– that Vice President Kamala Harris is a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump, the GOP nominee and former president who occupied the White House from 2017 to 2021.  

“We’ve got to focus on the fact that we have a candidate for the presidency of the United States of America, the likes of which we have never seen before,” Waters said. “A woman who is highly qualified. Someone who can prosecute the case. We are ready to do whatever we have to do. Whatever sacrifice it takes.” 

If elected in November, Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, would become America’s first Black, South Asian and female U.S. president. The Democratic National Convention will be held next week in Chicago. 

Waters and other speakers argued the conservative right’s Project 2025 agenda would harm Black Americans by “ripping away their health care, raising costs for families, defunding public education, and supporting policy that widens the racial wealth gap,” as stated in a Harris-Walz campaign press release. Waters and others also said that the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade has also “made the delivery room even more dangerous for Black women.” A right-leaning high court overturned Roe in 2022. 

Several elected officials attended the event, including Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, State Rep. Stephanie Young (D-Detroit), Wayne County Commission Chair Alisha Bell, Detroit City Council members Mary Sheffield and Mary Waters and Detroit Board of Education member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo as well as Kamilia Landrum, representative for Motor City Women for Kamala. Also represented were business owners, teachers and school administrators, auto workers and union representatives as well as clergy members. 

“We know first-hand the damage that [Trump] did,” said Young. “The rhetoric and disdain Trump shows for our community. We lived through his presidency. We know first-hand and we’re guessing.”  

Longtime political activist Lavonia Perryman Fairfax attended the event and said that the excitement for the Harris-Walz ticket is significant. 

“It’s like a Tsunami of joy has hit Michigan,” Perryman Fairfax said. 

Added Donna Givens Davidson of Detroit:  

“I’ve more solidarity between Black women and white women than I’ve seen in my life. I’ve seen white men…people coming together. And joy is going to win this campaign.”    

This story has been updated to better reflect the role of Kamilia Landrum.