“Black Vote, Black Power,” a collaboration between Keith Boykin and Word In Black,
examines the issues, the candidates, and what’s at stake for Black America in the 2024 presidential election.
CHICAGO — From the moment it started, the happy, hopeful Democratic Convention provided a stark contrast to the dark, divisive message of the Republican Party last month.
While the Republican convention featured a sea of white people sprinkled with a few unrepresentative Black people on the stage, Democratic delegates reflected the rich diversity of America in the audience.
Convention co-chair Minyon Moore, a Black woman from Chicago, and Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, a Black man from South Carolina, gaveled the convention to order. Harrison’s two young Black sons led the pledge of allegiance, Soul Children of Chicago sang a beautifully Black rendition of the national anthem, and NAACP president Derrick Johnson told the convention, “I’m here to do my Black job.”
But the most touching moment of the early evening came when Chicago’s own Rev. Jesse Jackson made a surprise appearance in a wheelchair to a standing ovation. Forty years after he electrified Democrats at the 1984 San Francisco convention with his Rainbow Coalition speech, Jackson is still beloved by the party.
Compare that to the MAGA Republicans who kicked out former president George W. Bush, former presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and former vice president Mike Pence in Milwaukee. They’re so hateful that they even turned on the people they claimed to love just a few years ago.
Democrats are showing us the opposite. This week’s list of speakers proudly featured Democrats Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton.
“Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial, and when he woke up” he became the first president to run for president with 34 felony convictions, Hillary Clinton told the convention. Then in an unscripted moment of poetic justice, the audience mockingly chanted, “Lock him up,” the same chant Trump led against Hillary eight years ago when she had committed no crime.
Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett compared résumés between Kamala Harris, who worked at McDonald’s while she was a student at a historically Black college, and Donald Trump, who “was born with a silver spoon in his mouth” and entered his daddy’s business: housing discrimination. “Kamala Harris became a career prosecutor while Trump became a career criminal,” Crockett said.
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And Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic senator from Georgia who pastors at Dr. King’s church in Atlanta, gave a sermon for the ages. I saw Trump holding the Bible and endorsing the Bible, as if the Bible needed his endorsement, said Rev. Warnock. “He should try reading it. It says do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” The Bible “says love your neighbor as yourself.”
Democratic speakers did not run away from the party’s most challenging internal conflict: the war in Gaza. “I need the poor children of Israel and the poor children of Gaza” to be OK, Rev. Warnock told the audience. “I need Israelis and Palestinians,” he said. Even President Joe Biden, who has been the main target of the criticism, acknowledged he had work to do. “Those protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed,” he said.
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Unlike the GOP Convention, there was no 71-year-old former professional wrestler ripping his shirt open in an outdated symbol of party masculinity, no clout-chasing reality TV star embracing a group that attacks people like her, and no party-produced signs threatening “mass deportations” of immigrants. There were real people, like Hadley Duvall, a rape and incest survivor speaking about the impact of Trump’s abortion bans. “What is so beautiful about a child having to carry their parent’s child?”
Kamala Harris surprised the audience with a cameo appearance and a final touching moment where she embraced President Biden as he said goodbye. It reminded me once again that Trump cannot embrace his own vice president because he tried to have him killed at the January 6 insurrection.
And that’s the fundamental difference between the two visions presented by the parties. Trump’s Milwaukee Republicans outlined a negative worldview based on fear. Democrats in Chicago offered a positive vision based on love. Fear teaches us scarcity. Love teaches us abundance. Fear encourages selfishness. Love encourages community. Fear is negative and backward-looking. Love is positive and forward-looking.
Those are the choices, America. Choose wisely.
Keith Boykin is a New York Times–bestselling author, TV and film producer, and former CNN political commentator. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Keith served in the White House, cofounded the National Black Justice Coalition, cohosted the BET talk show My Two Cents, and taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York. He’s a Lambda Literary Award-winning author and editor of seven books. He lives in Los Angeles.
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