Oprah highlights Kamala Harris’ desegregation of school in powerful DNC endorsement speech

Dressed in royal purple, back in the city that launched her to superstardom, Oprah Winfrey delivered a Democratic National Convention speech that only the queen of television could give.

During Wednesday night’s DNC keynote speeches, Winfrey officially endorsed Kamala Harris for president, calling on independents and undecided voters to get on board with the historic moment in politics.

“I’ve always voted my values,” said Winfrey, who is a registered independent. “And that is what is needed in this election, now more than ever. So I’m calling on all you independents and all you undecideds … values and character matter most of all — in leadership and in life. And more than anything— you know this is true — that decency and respect are on the ballot in 2024.”

Winfrey, 70, opened her speech by praising an America that made her success story of going from being born in poverty in Mississippi to becoming a billionaire media mogul possible. She also paid tribute to civil rights heroes like the late U.S. Congressman John Lewis, noting that despite political or cultural differences with fellow Americans, he believed the country should unite around our shared interest in the success of the nation.

But it was Winfrey’s tribute to Tessie Prevost Williams, who, as a young Black girl in 1960, desegregated her public school in New Orleans under dangerous threats, that made her endorsement of Kamala Harris even more powerful.

“It was the grace and guts and courage of women like Tessie Prevost Williams that paved the way for another young girl, who nine years later became part of the second class to integrate the public schools in Berkeley, California,” Winfrey said, referencing Kamala Harris.

In 1969, Harris participated in a school busing program that desegregated Thousand Oaks Elementary School, which was located in a predominantly white and well-to-do neighborhood.

In her memoir, “The Truths We Hold,” Harris writes that the Black community specifically welcomed her mother, an Indian immigrant, with open arms and that her mother “understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters … [and] she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.”

During last night’s DNC speech, Winfrey specifically mentioned Harris’s upbringing as foundational to inspiring her path as an attorney advocating for victims of crime and eventually as a U.S. senator.

“It seems to me that, at school and at home, somebody did a beautiful job of showing this young girl how to challenge the people at the top and empower the people at the bottom,” Winfrey said of Harris.

“They instilled in her a passion for justice and freedom and the glorious fighting spirit necessary to pursue that passion. And soon and very soon … we’re going to be teaching our daughters and sons about how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, two idealistic, energetic immigrants — immigrants — how this child grew up to become the 47th President of the United States. That is the best of America.”

The Oprah Winfrey endorsement is a rare but influential aspect of American presidential campaigns. In 2007, Winfrey helped propel Barack Obama into the national spotlight with an endorsement that won over many TV viewers who’d previously never heard of him. Obama was the first presidential politician Winfrey officially endorsed, and according to one study, she earned him 1 million primary votes.

Winfrey also made references to Donald Trump and his Republican running mate JD Vance, without naming them explicitly.

“Despite what some would have you think, we are not so different from our neighbors. When a house is on fire, we don’t ask about the homeowner’s race or religion … No, we just try to do the best we can to save them,” she said. “And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out too.”

“…Now, there’s a certain candidate that says, if we just go to the polls this one time, then we’ll never have to do it again,” Winfrey said, a nod to Donald Trump’s recent comments to Christian audiences that they wouldn’t have to “vote again” if they came out for him this November.

“Well, you know what? You’re looking at a registered independent who’s proud to vote again and again and again. Because I’m an American, and that’s what Americans do,” Winfrey declared.

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