VIDEO: Vice President Kamala Harris Addresses the Crowd at D.C.’s Capital Pride
Vice President Kamala Harris made history on the stage at Sunday's festival, delivering an emphatic, loving speech to the LGBTQ crowd.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff took to the main concert stage of the 2022 Capital Pride Festival late in the day on Sunday, June 12, where Harris spoke passionately and emphatically to a massive, abundantly cheering LGBTQ crowd. It was a historic first for a national Pride event.
“What a glorious day!” beamed Harris, who sported a pink blazer, after being introduced by Capital Pride Alliance executive director Ryan Bos. “We have so much to celebrate — and we celebrate each other every day! We celebrate the progress we have made!…
“No one should fear going to a Pride celebration because of a white supremacist,” she continued, making a pointed reference to the day prior, where 31 masked members of a white nationalist group, allegedly armed, were arrested by police in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, under suspicion of conspiring to riot at a nearby Pride celebration.
“No one should fear loving who they love!” the Vice President said. “Our children in Texas and Florida should not fear who they are! Black and brown and women of color — transgender women — should not pay [with] their lives! We should not have to be dealing with three hundred laws in states around our country that are attacking our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters!…
“We will continue to build unity, we will continue to build coalitions, we will always be fueled by knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us,” she concluded. “We will be fueled by knowing we are all in this together!
“And we will fight with pride. Happy Pride, everyone!”
As she left the stage, she warmly embraced RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 winner, Symone, who had joined the group onstage, along with Bos and Capital Pride Alliance President Ashley Smith, and longtime Capital Pride emcees Jerry Houston and Destiny B. Childs.
Watch the full speech in the video below.
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