On July 25, three days after AFT delegates voted to endorse her as the 2024 Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the AFT Convention in Houston.
Following some complimentary remarks about President Joe Biden, Harris said, “And to the members of AFT, I thank you for your service to our nation. From the public service workers and higher education faculty to the school bus drivers and the custodians to the school nurses and our teachers, you all do God’s work educating our children — the whole ecosystem of who are AFT members. It is you who have taken on the most noble of work, which is to concern yourself with the well-being of the children of America, and I thank you for that.”
She added, “And I thank you also for your support over the years and for being the first union to endorse me this week.”
Describing herself as “a proud product of public education,” Harris recalled the encouragement and inspiration she received from her first-grade teacher Frances Wilson: “And so it is because of Mrs. Wilson and so many teachers like her that I stand before you as vice president of the United States of America — and that I am running to become president of the United States of America.”
Harris made a point of calling out the conservative governing agenda Project 2025, asking AFT President Randi Weingarten, “Can you believe they put that thing in writing?” Harris noted that within the 900-plus-page agenda, there are plans “to return America to a dark past … back to union busting,” as well as the intention to “cut Medicare and Social Security, to stop student loan forgiveness for teachers and other public servants. And I say, to AFT, they even want to eliminate the Department of Education and end Head Start.”
Near the end of her address, Harris said, “We each in our country face a question, that question being: What kind of country do we want to live in? A country of freedom, compassion and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate?”
