By Cate Charron
Indiana Business Journal
Vice President Kamala Harris previewed her presidential campaign’s focus on women’s reproductive rights and social and economic equality during her remarks Wednesday afternoon at the Zeta Phi Beta Inc. Grand Boule conference in downtown Indianapolis.
In a 15-minute speech to the historically black sorority, Harris largely referred to herself and her campaign as “the future” as compared to Republican ticket whom she said wants to pull the country back.
She focused her message on the fight for a variety of rights.
“We are witnessing a full-on assault on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms,” she said, referring to voting rights, reproductive rights rolled back under the reversal of Roe v. Wade and more.
Harris, who is of Black and South Asian descent, would become the first female president, if elected. The audience of over 6,000 raucously applauded when Harris explicitly mentioned her intention to become president.
The event was one of her first stops since President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid last Sunday and endorsed Harris.
Harris, 59, has emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Indiana delegates to the Democratic National Convention voted unanimously Monday evening to endorse her.
Campaign priorities she mentioned in her speech Wednesday included affordable health care, gun control and economic adjustments for the working class. She also spent considerable time on topics especially affecting women, including reproductive rights, maternal mortality and child care expansion.
Her attendance at the Grand Boule adds to her long history with historically Black sororities. The vice president also spoke to Delta Sigma Theta last year in Indianapolis.
Harris attended Howard University where she joined Alpha Kappa Alpha. Her sorority along with Zeta Phi Beta are part of a cohort of historically Black sororities and fraternities nicknamed the “Divine Nine.”
Following Harris’ entrance into the presidential race, the Divine Nine announced a voter mobilization push. She spoke to her sorority’s members earlier this month in Dallas.
The crowd was expectedly pro-Harris, punctuating her sentences with a wave of applause, camera flashes and hands waving in the air.
Regarding Biden’s dropping out of the presidential race, Harris commended the president, saying he has accomplished much in his career and will continue to do so in the next six months. He has a “bold vision” and “an extraordinary determination and profound compassion for the people of our country,” she said.
She touched on several wins from their administration, including student loan debt relief, expansion of postpartum Medicaid coverage and a proposal to prevent medical debt from impacting credit scores.
Harris briefly touched on her Republican opposition without mentioning Donald Trump by name. Instead, she alluded to his ticket, calling the direction of his campaign as extremist.
She condemned Project 2025, a policy agenda laid out by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation for a new GOP administration, and called it an attempt to “return America to a dark past.”
She said the 900-page document calls for the roll back measures like preschool for children, Medicaid coverage and insulin price caps for the elderly.
Trump has said he is not associated with Project 2025. However, several members of his former administration contributed to it.
Indiana Republicans responded to Harris’ visit by criticizing the Biden-Harris administration’s response to the immigration crisis on the southern border.
“Joe Biden tasked Kamala Harris to be our border czar, and it’s been an unmitigated disaster, as every day thousands of illegal immigrants are following through our southern border with an end goal of either taking Hoosier jobs or bringing drugs to our state, and it needs to stop,” U.S. Sen Mike Braun, the GOP candidate for Indiana governor, said in written remarks.
