In this March 26, 1969, file photo, Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-N.Y., poses on the steps of the Capitol in Washington with material she plans to use in a speech before the House of Representatives. Fifty years have passed since the Brooklyn, N.Y. native made history on Nov. 5, 1968, as the first African-American woman elected to Congress. (AP Photo/Charles Gorry, File)
When Rep. Shirley Chisholm of New York ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, few people took her candidacy seriously. The idea of a Black woman becoming president struck many as unrealistic as a Black woman becoming a cabinet secretary or U.S. senator.
Although I was only 12 years old when Chisholm ran, I admired her as the first Black woman elected to Congress and wished she would make it to the White House, but I realized that sexism and racism made that an impossible dream.
How times have changed.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy took off like a rocket when President Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he would no longer seek re-election and endorsed her.
Biden is one of America’s greatest presidents. Like Harris, I strongly supported his re-election efforts. But when doubts arose about whether he was too old at 81 to serve four more years after his poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump, Biden selflessly stepped aside and said Harris should succeed him.
No one seriously challenged Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now, unlike Chisholm, Harris is being taken very seriously as a candidate who could lead our nation.
Harris has generated strong voter enthusiasm by building her campaign around the themes of preserving and expanding our freedoms, and moving our nation forward. Her campaign reported on August 25 that it had raised a stunning $540 million since Biden ended his candidacy. The enthusiasm continues to grow and has sparked a movement of voters who are organizing across America.
The vice president has rolled out impressive proposals, including ones to strengthen our economy, fight inflation, create jobs, expand reproductive rights, make healthcare more available and affordable, increase the affordable housing supply, support voting rights, reduce gun violence and other crime, and reform our immigration system and reduce unauthorized migration.
A Gallup poll released August 29 found the enthusiasm for voting among Democrats and people leaning Democratic soared from 55% in March to 78% in August. Enthusiasm among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters rose from 59% in March to only 64% in August.
The last time the enthusiasm of Democrats was higher was in February 2008, when it hit 79% when Barack Obama was running for the party’s presidential nomination.
But enthusiasm won’t necessarily translate into votes. The election remains close. Harris needs our votes, our volunteer efforts to help her campaign, and our campaign contributions if we are able to donate. She also needs to harness this energy by urging supporters to help strengthen our political system to enable more people to participate in our electoral process.
A Pew Research Center poll released August 22 — taken before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump — found 77% of Black voters supported or leaned toward supporting Harris, compared with 13% for Trump, 7% for Kennedy, and 3% for other candidates. That’s a big drop from the 92% to 8% lead Biden ran up over Trump in voting by Black Americans in 2020, according to a post-election analysis by Pew.
A challenge for the Harris campaign will be to boost support among Black voters to reach what Biden or Obama achieved. Exit polling after the 2008 election found that Obama — America’s only Black president so far — received 95% of the Black vote, compared with 43% of the white vote. In 2008, Black voter turnout exceeded white voter turnout for the first time in U.S. history, with 69% of eligible Black voters casting ballots, compared with 65% of white voters.
There are many similarities between Harris and Obama. The most obvious is that they have both always identified as Black, despite the absurd lie by Trump that Harris “happened to turn Black” a few years ago for political advantage. Harris is the daughter of a Black father from Jamaica and a mother from India. Obama is the son of a Black father from Kenya and a white mother.
The similarities between Harris and Obama are more than skin-deep. Both are brilliant high-achievers who have inspired movements. Both have the leadership qualities the presidency demands. Both radiate optimism, empathize with the needs of everyday Americans, and know how to get things done. Both put the needs of the American people ahead of their personal needs and desires.
In other words, Harris and Obama are the polar opposites of Trump, who was ranked this year by a group of 154 presidential historians and experts as the worst president in American history. Trump seeks to weaponize government against his enemies and poses a grave threat to our freedoms and our democracy.
Trump doesn’t know how to run against Harris. The 78-year-old former president built his campaign on false claims that Biden is a decrepit old man (just three years older than Trump) suffering from dementia. But Harris is 19 years younger than Trump, making it impossible for him to attack her as too old and putting him on the defensive about his own age and mental fitness, so Trump has turned to attacking Harris with vile racist and sexist stereotypes, and blatant lies. He even disgustingly reposted vulgar false claims on social media that she has advanced her career by performing sex acts.
These are desperate actions by a desperate, twice-impeached former president unfit to return to the White House.
November marks the 100th anniversary of Shirley Chisholm’s birth. “I stand, as so many of us do, on her shoulders,” Harris said in 2019, acknowledging the pioneering achievements of Chisholm and the paths to electoral success she opened up for female and Black candidates.
Reflecting on her unsuccessful 1972 presidential campaign, Chisholm said: “I felt that someday, a Black person or a female person should run for the presidency of the United States, and now I was a catalyst for change.” Indeed she was.
As president of the United States, Barack Obama opened the door of the Oval Office to a new generation of Americans. With a strong voter turnout, Kamala Harris has the potential to open the most powerful position in the world to all who want to build a more perfect union together.
Harris deserves to sit in the Oval Office not because she is a Black woman, but because she is the most qualified candidate for president on the ballot in this year’s election and the one most capable of building a better future for us all.
The movement she has inspired is for and about the people. If the people decide it is time to move forward, Harris will win on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
For the future and for our country.
Donna Brazile is an ABC News contributor, senior advisor at Purple Strategies, chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, veteran political strategist, and adjunct professor in the Women and Gender Studies Department at Georgetown University. She previously served as interim chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute.
This Op:Ed originally appeared in the NY Amsterdam News