CHICAGO — The Democratic National Convention begins today in Illinois, with roughly 50,000 people expected to arrive in the Windy City. That includes thousands of anti-war activists who plan to demonstrate near the United Center.
President Joe Biden is the headline speaker for the first evening. Later this week, Vice President Kamala Harris will officially accept the party’s nomination.
A group of several dozen activists, who had separated from a larger march advocating for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, were removed from a restricted area by police, including those led by Superintendent Larry Snelling.
Police wearing helmets with masks attached formed a line along a fence, which had been previously breached and still had several panels missing, while some activists shouted at them. Several protesters who had managed to get through the fence were detained and handcuffed by the police.
Johnson of the NAACP expressed concern at rhetoric from former President Trump and other Republicans calling into question the security or legitimacy of the country’s election security, noting that the attacks are often aimed at election systems serving communities of color.
“If there are legitimate concerns around election integrity, let’s address them,” Johnson said. “But to continue to repeat something that is neither factual or misleading is only furthering the goal of eroding trust in the system, and that’s a strategy.”
Campbell from the NCBCP believes that the energy, which she found especially pronounced among young activists, was only the start of a broader engagement effort for communities of color.
“When this over, the work begins,” Campbell said.
Civil rights leaders speaking at the DNC’s first night are expecting to hear concrete plans for racial and economic justice from their fellow speakers from the podium this week.
“I will be listening to determine whether they are speaking to the needs and interests of African American communities across this country,” said Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“I’ll be expecting her to lay out the foundation for where she will want to take the country,” said Melanie Campbell, CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, a civil rights group that works to enfranchise Black Americans.
Johnson and Campbell are both speaking tonight. Campbell noted that the event has had “a high level of energy,” largely drawn from renewed optimism among liberals and progressives at the ascension of Vice President Harris.
“It was not something we were expecting. It is a humbling moment we are witnessing. Our ancestors’ wildest dreams,” said Campbell.
Campbell, who called on Biden to select a Black woman as his vice president during the 2020 election, said she had always been sure that Harris was prepared to serve from the Oval Office. “We knew she had to be ready to be president, as with any previous vice president,” Campbell said of her and her allies thinking in 2020.
The Harris campaign’s principal deputy manager, Quentin Fulks, pushed back against criticism that the vice president hasn’t shared many policy proposals since launching her campaign about a month ago.
Onstage at the CNN-Politico Grill at the convention, he pointed to her proposals to give $25,000 in down payment help to first-time homebuyers, to expand the child tax credit and to build more affordable housing units.
“I think that she has rolled out policy and I think any qualms with sort of what’s on the website is just a matter of literally switching the top of the ticket in a presidential campaign,” he said.
“You’re going to continue to see more policy proposals from her. But the important thing is that the vice president isn’t just saying things to get votes. These policies are being developed based on her worldviews, her values, her vision set. And so, it’s really important to her that she gets it right.”
