Harris tells black religious people that people need to show compassion and respect for their lives

STONECREST, Ga. – Kamala Harris told the congregation of a large black church in suburban Atlanta on Sunday that people need to show compassion and respect in their daily lives and do more than “preach values.”

The Democratic presidential candidate’s visit to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest on her 60th birthday, marked by a congregational song, was part of a broad national campaign known as “Souls at the Ballots.” that encourages black religious to vote. .

Pastor Jamal Bryant said the vice president was “an American hero, the voice of the future” and “our fearless leader.” He also used his sermon to welcome the idea of ​​America electing a woman president for the first time. “It takes a real man to support a real woman,” Bryant said.

“When black women get up, then society has to change,” the pastor said.

Harris told the parable of the Good Samaritan from the Gospel of Luke, about a man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho and was attacked by thieves. The traveler was beaten and left bleeding, but was helped by a stranger.

All faiths promote the idea of ​​loving your neighbor, Harris said, but much harder to achieve is truly loving a stranger as if that person were a neighbor.

“Right now, across our nation, what we see are some who are trying to deepen division among us, spread hatred, sow fear and cause chaos,” Harris told the congregation. “The true measure of a leader’s strength is based on who you raise.”

It was more somber than during his political demonstrations, emphasizing that real faith means defending humanity. He said the Samaritan parable reminds people that “it’s not enough to preach the values ​​of compassion and respect. We have to live them.”

Harris ended by saying, “Weeping may last a night, but joy comes in the morning,” as the audience applauded her.

Many in attendance wore pink to promote breast cancer awareness. Also there was Opal Lee, an activist in the movement to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday. Harris hugged her.

The vice president also makes a midday stop at Divine Faith Ministries International in Jonesboro with singer Stevie Wonder, before taping an interview with the Rev. Al Sharpton that will air later Sunday on MSNBC. The schedule reflects his campaign’s push to treat every voting bloc like a swing state voter, trying to appeal to all of them in a hotly contested election with early voting underway.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, was headed to church in Saginaw, Michigan, and his wife, Gwen, was on her way to a service in Las Vegas.

The “Souls to the Polls” effort launched last week and is led by the National Advisory Board of Black Faith Leaders, which is sending representatives to battleground states as early voting begins in the May 5 election. of November

“My father used to say, ‘a people without a vote is a people without power,’ and one of the most important steps we can take is that short step to the ballot box,” Martin Luther King III said Friday. “When black voters are organized and engaged, we have the power to change the trajectory of this nation.”

On Saturday, the vice president rallied supporters in Detroit with singer Lizzo before traveling to Atlanta to focus on abortion rights, highlighting the death of a Georgia mother amid restrictive abortion laws in the state they entered into force after the Supreme Court of the United States, with three judges appointed by Donald Trump, overturned Roe v. Wade.

And after his Sunday push, he will campaign with former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in suburban Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“Donald Trump still refuses to take responsibility, to take any responsibility, for the pain and suffering he has caused,” Harris said.

Harris is a Baptist whose husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish. She has said she is inspired by the work of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and influenced by the religious traditions of her mother’s native India, as well as the Black Church. Harris sang in the choir as a child at the Twenty Third Avenue Church of God in Oakland.

“Souls to the Polls” as an idea goes back to the Civil Rights Movement. Reverend George Lee, a black businessman from Mississippi, was killed by white supremacists in 1955 after he helped nearly 100 black residents register to vote in the town of Belzoni. The cemetery where Lee is buried has served as a polling place.

Black church congregations across the country have been running get-out-the-vote campaigns for years. In part to counter voter suppression tactics dating back to the Jim Crow era, early voting in the black community is being hyped from the pulpits almost as much as the candidates are.

In Georgia, early voting began on Tuesday and more than 310,000 people voted that day, more than double the first-day total in 2020. A record 5 million people voted in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.