ORANGEBURG — Vice President Kamala Harris implored students at a historically Black college to be the leadership America needs, using her speech at South Carolina State University’s fall convocation to urge young people to vote in the upcoming midterms.
Standing inside the Smith-Hammond-Middleton Memorial Center, Harris painted a portrait of a nation at an inflection point.
She said ideals that Americans previously thought of as “long-settled” now hang in the balance, from what constitutes truth to whether women will have abortion access, framing it in her speech as an issue of women’s rights.
That’s when Harris appealed to the 15 rows of hundreds of freshmen who sat looking up at her from their seats in the center of the gymnasium.
“In moments of great crisis our nation has almost every time turned to our young leaders to help guide us forward,” Harris said.
The vice president’s 22-minute speech, which coincided with National Voter Registration Day, came after she traveled to nearby Claflin University, another historically Black college in South Carolina. There she participated in a wide-ranging roundtable discussion with student leaders.
The private conversation echoed many of the issues Harris would highlight in her remarks to students at S.C. State, especially when she called for better access to mental health care services and demanded immediate action on climate change, which she called a “climate crisis.”
“To accomplish those goals we need you,” Harris said.
Since becoming vice president Harris said she has spoken directly with more than 100 world leaders in-person or by phone.
“They have asked me, in this moment of great uncertainty how will our nation, how will you as Americans, respond?” Harris said. “Well, I think that is a question we all have to answer together.”
Harris’ trip to South Carolina, her third as vice president, illustrates how the vice president is hoping to motivate young voters and people of color before the November elections.
Vice President Kamala Harris delivers the keynote speech at South Carolina State University’s Fall Convocation Tuesday Sept. 20, 2022, in Orangeburg. Gavin McIntyre/Staff
On Friday, she was in Chicago rallying for reproductive rights. On Thursday, Harris will travel to Milwaukee, where she will speak at the Democratic Attorneys General Association Conference.
South Carolina Republicans were quick to condemn the visit.
“Kamala Harris has been to South Carolina more times during her Vice Presidency than she has been to the southern border,” said S.C. GOP Chairman Drew McKissick. “Maybe this time she’s just escaping the reality of the hundreds of illegal immigrants dropped off outside her residence in D.C.”
The state Republican Party and the reelection campaign for Gov. Henry McMaster also used the visit to question why Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Cunningham was not there to welcome Harris.
“This is another attempt from Henry McMaster to distract South Carolinians from noticing that he has zero ideas or solutions to our state’s challenges and instead spends his time obsessing over what Joe is doing and who Joe is talking to,” said Tyler Jones, Cunningham’s chief strategist. “Joe is busy campaigning to expand freedom in South Carolina by eliminating the state income tax, legalizing marijuana, and protecting a woman’s right to control her own body.”
The visit by the vice president came less than 50 days before the midterms, where Democrats are trying to defend their narrow control of Congress. Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to regain their GOP majority by making the upcoming election a referendum on the first two years of the Biden presidency.
“In our democracy your vote is one of your most powerful tools for driving change,” Harris said, later concluding, “Your vote is your voice.”
Harris made history when she became the first woman, the first Black American and the first Asian-American to serve as vice president. A graduate of Howard University, Harris is also the first HBCU graduate elected vice president of the United States.
“Believe me, there is no barrier that you cannot break,” Harris said to applause.
Harris was joined on the trip by U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, who also encouraged students to vote in the Nov. 8 election.
“Standing up for civil rights and voting rights is part of your DNA,” Cardona said, noting that events like the Orangeburg massacre where three students were killed in a confrontation with authorities reminds “us that we cannot take democracy for granted.”
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona delivers brief remarks at South Carolina State University’s Fall Convocation Tuesday Sept. 20, 2022, in Orangeburg. Gavin McIntyre/Staff
Harris also invoked the connection HBCUs have to civil rights when she briefly highlighted a few of the young Black visionaries who made a difference in America’s fight for racial equality.
Harris said the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia was 23 when he spoke at the March on Washington in 1963, and Diane Nash was 21 when she led sit-ins to protest racial segregation in Nashville.
Then she invoked South Carolina’s own House Majority Whip U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia, who was in his early 20s and a student at S.C. State when he was arrested in Orangeburg for staging sit-in protests against segregated businesses.
The vice president called him “the great Jim Clyburn.”