'We will fight,' Harris says in MLK Day speech, warning of threats to US freedom
By Trevor Hunnicutt and Nandita Bose
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris warned Americans that their freedom is under threat as she commemorated Martin Luther King Jr. Day in early-voting South Carolina on Monday, wielding the civil-rights icon's legacy to urge Black voters to join Democrats to win the 2024 election.
Harris headlined an annual event by the NAACP, the nation's oldest civil rights group, which included a prayer service and a march to the South Carolina House of Representatives in Columbia. She pressed one of Democrats' central election messages — President Joe Biden and his Democrats need voters' help to protect Americans' rights from Republicans.
Harris said that freedom in the country is under «profound threat,» citing the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, long lines for voting and the prevalence of gun violence. She quoted King's late widow, Coretta Scott King, who said «Freedom is never truly won. You earn it and win it in every generation.»
Voters need to «roll up our sleeves,» she said. «We were born for a time such as this.»
«We will fight,» Harris concluded. «And when we fight we win.»
Ahead of her speech, a group of chanting protesters, some waving Palestinian flags, massed outside the venue, a sign of the dissent within the Democratic Party over Biden's Israel policy.
Biden marked the holiday by volunteering for Philabundance, a hunger relief group in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a state his aides regard as must-win in November, where he loaded packages with fresh fruit and milk onto a conveyer belt in a warehouse.
Republicans, including that party's front-runner, former President Donald Trump, are wrapping up their Iowa campaigns on the day of
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