Vice President Kamala Harris was in Indianapolis Thursday to deliver remarks during the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. National Convention.
In her remarks, which came during the organization's Social Action Luncheon, Harris spoke against Florida's new Black history standards in schools. The Florida Board of Education approved new standards this week for how public schools should approach Black history. It includes teaching that some Blacks benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills.
Harris telling the group, which has a membership of some 350,000 women, "They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it, we who share a collective experience in knowing we must honor history and our duty in the context of legacy." The Vice President added, "There is so much at stake in this moment: our most basic rights and freedoms, fact versus fiction, foundational principles about what it means to be a democracy."
In celebrating achievements by the Biden Administration, Harris told those gathered inside the Indiana Convention Center, "For far too long, our justice system has not fully reflected the diversity of our nation. So, when we took office, President Biden and I have appointed more Black women to the federal appellate courts than any other administration in history combined, including, of course, the first Black woman to ever sit on the highest Court of our land and your newest member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson."
The newest honorary members of Delta Sigma Theta are Justice Brown Jackson; Rashida Jones, President of MSNBC; Debra Lee, former BET CEO; Channing Dungey, Warner Bros. chairperson; Phyllis Newhouse, award-winning entrepreneur; Bonnie Jenkins, United States Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security; and Tamika Catchings, former WNBA player.