Greetings, America.
It is truly an honor
to be speaking with you tonight.
That I am here tonight
is a testament
to the dedication
of generations before me.
Women and men who believed
so fiercely in the promise
of equality, liberty,
and justice for all.
This week marks
the 100th anniversary
of the passage
of the 19th amendment.
And we celebrate the women
who fought for that right.
Yet so many of the Black women
who helped secure
that victory were still
prohibited from voting,
long after its ratification.
But they were undeterred.
Without fanfare or recognition,
they organized and testified,
and rallied and marched
and fought,
not just for their vote,
but for a seat at the table.
These women and the generations
that followed worked
to make democracy
and opportunity
real in the lives
of all of us who followed.
They paved the way for the
trailblazing leadership
of Barack Obama
and Hillary Clinton.
And these women inspired us
to pick up the torch,
and fight on.
Women like Mary Church Terrell
and Mary McCleod Bethune.
Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash.
Constance Baker Motley
and Shirley Chisholm.
We're not often taught
their stories.
But as Americans, we all
stand on their shoulders.
And there's another woman,
whose name isn't known,
whose story isn't shared.
Another woman
whose shoulders I stand on.
And that's my mother,
Shyamala Gopalan Harris.
She came here from India
at age 19
to pursue her dream
of curing cancer.
At the University of California
Berkeley,
she met my father,
Donald Harris,
who had come from Jamaica
to study economics.
They fell in love
in that most American way,
while marching together
for justice
in the civil rights movement
of the 1960s.
In the streets of Oakland
and Berkeley,
I got a stroller's-eye
view of people
getting into what the great John
Lewis called "good trouble."
When I was 5, my parents split,
and my mother raised us
mostly on her own.
Like so many mothers,
she worked around the clock
to make it work, packing lunches
before we woke up,
and paying bills after
we went to bed,
helping us with homework
at the kitchen table,
and shuttling us to church
for choir practice.
She made it look easy,
though it never was.
My mother instilled
in my sister, Maya,
and me the values that would
chart the course of our lives.
She raised us to be proud,
strong Black women.
And she raised us to know and
be proud of our Indian heritage.
She taught us to put
family first,
the family you're born into
and the family you choose.
Family is my husband Doug,
who I met on a blind date
set up by my best friend.
Family is our beautiful
children, Cole and Ella,
who call me Momala.
Family is my sister.
Family is my best friend,
my nieces, and my godchildren.
Family is my uncles,
my aunts, my chitthis.
Family is Mrs.
Shelton,
my second mother who lived two
doors down and helped raise me.
Family is my beloved
Alpha Kappa Alpha, our Divine 9,
and my HBCU brothers
and sisters.
Family is the friends
I turned to when my mother,
the most important person
in my life,
passed away from cancer.
And even as she taught us
to keep our family
at the center of our world,
she also pushed us to see
a world beyond ourselves.
She taught us to be conscious
and compassionate
about the struggles
of all people,
to believe public service
is a noble cause
and the fight for justice
is a shared responsibility.
That led me to become a lawyer,
a District Attorney,
Attorney General,
and a United States Senator.
And at every step of the way,
I've been guided by the words
I spoke from the first time
I stood in a courtroom --
Kamala Harris,
For the People.
I've fought for children,
and survivors of sexual assault.
I've fought against
transnational
criminal organizations.
I took on the biggest banks,
and helped take down one of
the biggest for-profit colleges.
I know a predator
when I see one.
My mother taught me that service
to others
gives life purpose
and meaning.
And, oh, how I wish
she were here tonight,
but I know she's looking
down on me from above.
I keep thinking about that
25-year-old Indian woman,
all of five feet tall,
who gave birth to me
at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland,
California.
On that day, she probably
could have never imagined
that I would be standing before
you now speaking these words --
I accept your nomination
for Vice President
of the United States
of America.
I do so, committed to
the values she taught me.
To the Word that teaches me
to walk by faith,
and not by sight.
And to a vision passed on
through generations
of Americans,
one that Joe Biden shares.
A vision of our nation
as a Beloved Community,
where all are welcome,
no matter what we look like,
where we come from,
or who we love.
A country where we may not agree
on every detail,
but we are united
by the fundamental belief
that every human being
is of infinite worth,
deserving of compassion,
dignity and respect.
A country where we look out
for one another,
where we rise and fall as one,
where we face our challenges,
and celebrate
our triumphs together.
Today, that country
feels distant.
Donald Trump's failure
of leadership
has cost lives
and livelihoods.
If you're a parent struggling
with your child's
remote learning,
or you're a teacher struggling
on the other side
of that screen,
you know that what we're doing
right now isn't working.
And we are a nation
that's grieving.
Grieving the loss of life,
the loss of jobs,
the loss of opportunities,
the loss of normalcy.
And, yes, the loss of certainty.
And while this virus
touches us all,
let's be honest, it is not
an equal opportunity offender.
Black, Latino, and Indigenous
people are suffering
and dying disproportionately.
And this is not a coincidence.
It is the effect
of structural racism.
Of inequities in education
and technology, healthcare,
and housing, job security,
and transportation.
The injustice in reproductive
and maternal healthcare.
In the excessive use
of force by police.
And in our broader
criminal justice system.
This virus has no eyes,
and yet it knows exactly
how we see each other,
and how we treat each other.
And let's be clear,
there is no vaccine for racism.
We've gotta do the work
for George Floyd,
for Breonna Taylor,
For the lives of too many others
to name,
for our children,
and for all of us.
We've gotta do the work
to fulfill
that promise
of equal justice under law.
Because here's the thing.
None of us are free
until all of us are free.
We're at an inflection point.
The constant chaos
leaves us adrift.
The incompetence
makes us feel afraid.
The callousness
makes us feel alone.
It's a lot.
And here's the thing.
We can do better and deserve
so much more.
We must elect a president who
will bring something different,
something better,
and do the important work.
A president who will bring
all of us together,
Black, White, Latino,
Asian, Indigenous,
to achieve the future
we collectively want.
We must elect Joe Biden.
I will tell you,
I knew Joe as Vice President.
I knew Joe
on the campaign trail.
But I first got to know Joe
as the father of my friend.
So Joe's son, Beau and I served
as Attorneys
General of our states,
Delaware and California.
During the Great Recession,
he and I spoke on the phone
nearly every day,
working together to win back
billions of dollars
for homeowners
from the big banks
that foreclosed
on people's homes.
And Beau and I,
we would talk about his family.
How, as a single father,
Joe would spend
four hours every day
riding the train back and forth
from Wilmington to Washington.
Beau and Hunter
got to have breakfast
every morning with their dad.
They went to sleep every night
with the sound of his voice
reading bedtime stories.
And while they endured
an unspeakable loss,
those two little boys
always knew
that they were deeply,
unconditionally loved.
And what also moved me about Joe
is the work he did,
as he went back and forth.
This is the leader who wrote
the Violence Against Women Act,
and enacted
the Assault Weapons Ban.
Who, as Vice President,
implemented The Recovery Act,
which brought our country
back from The Great Recession.
He championed
the Affordable Care Act,
protecting millions of Americans
with pre-existing conditions.
Who spent decades promoting
American values
and interests around the world.
Joe, he believes we stand
with our allies
and stand up to our adversaries.
Right now, we have a president
who turns our tragedies
into political weapons.
Joe will be a president
who turns our challenges
into purpose.
Joe will bring us together
to build an economy
that doesn't leave
anyone behind,
where a good, paying job
is the floor, not the ceiling.
Joe will bring us together
to end this pandemic
and make sure that we are
prepared for the next one.
Joe will bring us together
to squarely face
and dismantle
racial injustice,
furthering the work
of generations.
Joe and I believe that we can
build that Beloved Community,
one that is strong and decent,
just and kind.
One in which we all
can see ourselves.
That's the vision that our
parents and grandparents
fought for.
The vision that made
my own life possible.
The vision that makes
the American promise,
for all its complexities
and imperfections,
a promise worth fighting for.
So make no mistake,
the road ahead is not easy.
We will stumble.
We may fall short.
But I pledge to you that we will
act boldly and deal
with our challenges honestly.
We will speak truths.
And we will act with the same
faith in you
that we ask you
to place in us.
We believe that our country,
all of us,
will stand together
for a better future.
And we already are.
We see it in the doctors,
the nurses,
the home healthcare workers,
and the frontline workers
who are risking their lives to
save people they've never met.
We see it in the teachers
and truck drivers,
the factory workers and farmers,
the postal workers
and Poll workers, all putting
their own safety on the line
to help us get
through this pandemic.
And we see it in so many of you
who are working,
not just to get us
through our current crises,
but to somewhere better.
There's something happening,
all across the country.
It's not about Joe or me.
It's about you,
and it's about us.
People of all ages and colors
and creeds who are,
yes, taking to the streets,
and also persuading
our family members,
rallying our friends,
organizing our neighbors,
and getting out the vote.
And we've shown that,
when we vote,
we expand access to healthcare,
expand access to the ballot box,
and ensure that more
working families
can make a decent living.
And I'm so inspired
by a new generation.
You, you are pushing us
to realize
the ideals of our nation,
pushing us to live the values
we share --
decency and fairness,
justice and love.
You are the patriots
who remind us that
to love our country is to fight
for the ideals of our country.
In this election,
we have a chance
to change the course of history.
We're all in this fight.
You, me, and Joe, together.
What an awesome responsibility.
What an awesome privilege.
So, let's fight with conviction.
Let's fight with hope.
Let's fight with confidence
in ourselves,
and a commitment to each other.
To the America we know
is possible,
the America, we love.
And years from now,
this moment will have passed.
And our children
and our grandchildren
will
look in our eyes and ask us,
"Where were you when the stakes
were so high?"
They will ask us,
"What was it like?"
And we will tell them.
We will tell them,
not just how we felt.
We will tell them what we did.
Thank you.
God bless you.
And God bless the United States
of America.
