Former Vice-President Kamala Harris gave the keynote speech this morning at Chicago’s 40th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Breakfast and she urged people to continue Dr. King’s fight.
Vice-President Harris said that, just yesterday, she visited the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, and she wondered what Dr. King would think about what’s going on in the United States right now.
She believes that, like during his time, he would feel that people were sick and tired of being sick and tired of what’s going on.
“When the federal government rips people out of their car, out of their home, out of their church. When a family is separated and a mother of three is shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, people are sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Harris said that people are sick and tired of being sick and tired, not only of abuses by ICE agents, but by the rigging of congressional maps, the crafting of a Supreme Court to gut the Voting Rights Act and of an economy forcing some people to choose between groceries or medicine.
The former vice-president and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr loved America and believed that, to love your country is to fight for your country.
Former Vice-President Harris said this is not a moment for people to throw up their hands but to roll up their sleeves, to organize and to register people to vote and speak and act with truth, power and conviction.
She closed her remarks with a charge that had a double-meaning.
“We will continue the fight with determination, with resilience and, dare I say, and joy. So in the spirit of Chicago, it is time to Bear down!”