Some of America’s most outstanding black women in politics, business and entertainment joined hundreds of their colleagues on a Zoom call Sunday night to mobilize support for Vice President Kamala Harris, raising $1.5 million in only three hours.
About 44,000 black women, including Representative Maxine Waters of California, certainly one of the highest-ranking black women in Congress, in addition to other representatives resembling Joyce Beatty and Jasmine Crockett, spoke of supporting Harris against Donald Trump within the US presidential election in November.
Reverend Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and executive director of the King Center, said that although she has been voting since she was 18, she has never publicly endorsed a candidate until now.
“I’m 100% on their side and I’m going to be very strategic,” King said within the phone call.
Win With Black Women, a political advocacy group that organized the decision, later said it had raised $1.5 million for Harris’ campaign in three hours, joining a flood of other donations as Democrats raised greater than $50 million online on Sunday after President Joe Biden announced he wouldn’t seek re-election.
Biden’s decision to step down and support Harris could pose a threat to the Trump campaign. Polls had shown that black voters, who had overwhelmingly supported Biden within the 2020 election, had turned away from the Democratic Party because of concerns about inflation, slow progress on civil rights issues and the president’s support for Israel within the Gaza war. Trump, meanwhile, had been attempting to rating points with black voters.
Others participating within the conversation included former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile, Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, and Maryland First Lady Dawn Moore. Maryland Governor Wes Moore, later made a press release Support for Harris’ candidacy. Due to the big variety of participants, the organizers needed to ask Zoom Video Communications Inc. Expand capability for the meeting that the video conferencing company was in a position to conduct for the shopper.
Democratic Rep. Beatty, who represents Ohio in Congress, urged attendees to make use of their platforms to mobilize support for Harris of their communities. “We have a strong message because we are in the fight, we are on this journey, we are aware of the importance of this moment,” she said.
Organizers of Win With Black Women didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment. Bloomberg News reviewed a stream of the decision posted on social media platform X.
