Gadsden County Commissioner Brenda Holt rallies supporters behind Vice President Kamala Harris at an event in Quincy on July 26, 2024. (Photo Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)
Faith and political leaders gathered Friday in Quincy in an effort to unify around Vice President Kamala Harris, the new Democratic presumptive nominee for president.
The Harris campaign launched a 36-event mobilization effort to rally support around the presumptive nominee, who was named just over 100 days before the election. The campaign reported more than 7,000 new volunteers in Florida as of Thursday.
Ann Williams, chair of the Gadsden County Democratic Party, called for that unity to more efficiently spread a message to voters.
“What we’re trying to do is, because you got so many organizations here in Quincy, rather than individually, we’re trying to bring them all together,” Williams said. “Because what I feel like is happening is, we’re going behind one another, but we need to be together so that we can walk together.”
The event included remarks from Williams, the Harris campaign’s Florida Black vote director; county commissioners Brenda Holt and Ronterious Green; and faith leader Joe Parramore, who served as statewide faith director for the Biden-Harris campaign in 2020 and now serves as director for legislative affairs for the Florida Council of Churches.
The Harris campaign has a meeting scheduled in the county next week with community leaders to strategize ways to amplify Harris’ campaign.
Melanie Williams, Florida Black vote director for Harris’ campaign, said the switch at the top of the ticket will make her job more fun.
“This makes my job not only a lot easier, but I think it will make my job more fun because, I’m going to be honest, talking to Black people about Biden, y’all was already telling me, ‘Yeah I’m going to vote but, you know, I’m just voting because I have to.’ Now people are excited, re-energized in voting because we want to,” Williams said.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Holt spoke about the importance of electing leaders who are educated about Black history, and rallied Democrats to help others register to vote. Gadsden is the only county in Florida in which Black people comprise a majority of the population.
“We are Americans, we are Gadsden County, we are going to get out, we’re going to get these votes, we’re going to get people registered, because we’re going to be doing what? We’re going to be voting for Kamala Harris and whoever her running mate is,” Holt said. “And they’re fussing about that, I don’t know why, it doesn’t matter which white man, just pick one, let’s go, let’s go, let’s fight, let’s go, and that’s what we need to do.”
Organizers gathered in the Park Way Center in Quincy, Florida on July 26, 2024, to show support for Vice President Kamala Harris. (Photo Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)
“I think there’s been a huge shift in excitement, and I think the biggest thing is even I have been crying for generational change and I think now we have the opportunity to see that generational change,” Parramore told the Phoenix before speaking to the community.
Organizers emphasized a need to shift the state’s recent voting trends.
“And if we’re going to see our great nation continue to move forward, it starts at home, it starts in this county, it carries from this county to the next county to the next county to the next county, to all 67 counties, and we flip this state blue again,” Parramore told organizers.
Alice DuPont, a longtime Gadsden resident, complained that in recent years citizens have become “lazy” when it comes to politics, and stressed that re-educating is part of organizing. She said the change in candidate has created cohesiveness.
“I wouldn’t have ordered it, but this is good. Because now we realize that we don’t have time to not agree or disagree with each other. We have one goal, and that’s to get our people elected,” DuPont said.
Ann Williams called on Harris to share more of her platform to help organizers rally undecided voters.
“She has a very short window, but she needs to begin to let the people know what she actually stands for, so that we can organize, while she’s telling us what she stands for we can organize more here,” Ann Williams said. “She’s given us bits and pieces of vision, but write the vision, make it plain so that all of us can understand the vision and run with it.”
SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST.