American second gentleman Doug Emhoff speaks to a crowd during a Juneteenth celebration at Raleigh’s Word of God Church (Photo: Rob Schofield)
Second gentleman.
It’s a unique and rather awkward official title that Doug Emhoff — the husband of the nation’s first female vice president, Kamala Harris — wears, but it appears to be one he’ll enjoy as he arrived in Raleigh on Tuesday for his wife’s birthday and President Biden’s re-election in November.
Emhoff’s seemed comfortable and at home as he spoke to a gathering of about 200 people in the steamy back parking lot of Word of God Church in Southeast Raleigh during an informal Juneteenth celebration with food trucks, vendors, children’s games and appearances by an elementary school teacher. school choir.
In his remarks, Emhoff pulled no punches in characterizing the fall battle with the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee: Donald Trump. Using the holiday and celebration of freedom as a starting point, Emhoff said that “everything is at stake” in the fall elections and that it is imperative for African Americans to help “Trump and his MAGA allies in to keep their track.”
After reading a long list of what he described as accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration — record low Black unemployment, doubling the number of Black-owned small business startups, appointing the first Black Supreme Court justice women, the passage of the nation’s first new gun safety legislation in three decades, the largest federal investment in HBCUs in US history, a $35 monthly cap on insulin prescriptions, historic investments in broadband and removal of lead pipes – Emhoff said : “All this goes away if Trump and his MAGA allies win.”
In blasting what he described as Trump’s “nod, nod, wink, wink” relationship with the white supremacist movement and its supporters, Emhoff said the fate of all Americans “will be even worse” than during Trump’s first term as he is chosen. in the fall, and that voters have four and a half months to “save our democracy, our world and our way of life.”
Emhoff was preceded on stage by a collection of local and national Democratic politicians.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper spoke in similarly urgent terms about the fall election, saying it represents a “pivotal moment for the state and the country.” Before signing a Juneteenth proclamation, surrounded by a group of black elementary school students from Wilson County, Cooper said, “We celebrate freedom. [of Juneteenth] today, but the struggle for freedom was not over then and is not over now.”
Other speakers included:
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Senator Natalie Murdock, Secretary of State for Durham, who served as the event’s emcee,
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Monika Johnson-Hostler, Wake County School Board member and Democratic Party candidate for House of Representatives, who read a Juneteenth proclamation from the Wake County Board of Commissioners:
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Jamie Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who called on the public to “fight back against evil forces” and defend “hope and progress over hate and division,” and
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Wake County Congresswoman and former State Representative Deborah Ross, who reminded the audience how her late former colleague, Representative Larry Womble of Forsyth County, had long fought to establish Juneteenth as a state holiday, long before it was officially recognized.
Although Juneteenth is now an official federal holiday, it remains only optional for North Carolina state government employees and is not a holiday that the Republican leadership of the General Assembly has chosen to celebrate. A few miles northwest of today’s event, business continued as usual during a busy day at the state Legislature building, where several committee meetings took place and consideration of the Republican Party-authored state budget proposal was scheduled for debate on the House floor. afternoon.
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