Susan Taylor and Mary-Murphy Walsh, president of the Young Democrats of RI. Outside the convention hall Palestinian flags signaled the protest. Cornel West, political activist and philosopher. (Photos by Zane Wolfang)
Rhode Island sent 35 delegates to Chicago last week for the Democratic National Convention, where they joined thousands of fellow delegates, political operatives, journalists, activists and protesters who traveled from around the country to make their voices heard.
Over the course of four days, the Democratic Party solidified its policy platform and rallied around Kamala Harris as their nominee for president. Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, also made a quick side trip to the hotly contested state of Wisconsin, where they held a large rally in Milwaukee on Aug. 20 while Barack and Michelle Obama addressed the DNC during prime ime.
Susan Taylor, a semi-retired immigration lawyer who serves as chair of the Newport Democratic City Committee, was one of Rhode Island’s 35 delegates. Newport Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong also traveled to Chicago as an alternate delegate.
Taylor said the tone was set for the week when the Biden and Harris families took the stage on Aug. 19.
“I would describe it as intimate,” she said. “You saw all of these families;
Biden’s family, Kamala’s and Doug’s family . . . and more specifically, lots of blended families. And they were letting you into their intimate observations, thoughts and feelings about their loved ones, and you felt honored to be invited in.”
About 20 of Rhode Island’s delegates were chosen by voters in the April primary, and the rest were selected by state party leadership in close consultation with the Biden campaign. Those delegates who were selected, including Taylor, were announced at the Rhode Island Democratic State Convention, which was held in East Providence in June.
“You have a delegation who are very enthusiastic and very moved by [President Biden’s] decision to step aside, and profoundly moved by the sense of euphoria around Kamala and then her choice of Tim Walz,” said Taylor, who added the Rhode Island delegation was fully committed to reelecting Biden before he decided to step aside.
“The sense of appreciation for President Biden was just overwhelming, and you would hear these spontaneous outbursts throughout the rest of the convention on the subsequent nights as well, with ‘Thank you Joe!’ being chanted by pockets of the crowd every time somebody referenced something Biden had done,” she said.
“It was an honor to be part of the delegation selected to represent Rhode Island. Momentum built throughout the week as convention speakers focused on the importance of listening to our fellow Americans across generations, political divides and backgrounds,” said Khamsyvoravong. “There was a clear generational passing of the torch, with Vice President Harris making the case that we need to work together to ensure the future prosperity of our country and protection of our freedoms.”
Protesters Heard
Pro-Palestine protesters also made their presence felt in Chicago as they rallied and marched on a daily basis to demand the Biden-Harris administration stop providing political and military support for the Israeli government’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. The police presence was formidable, the media presence was saturating, and the atmosphere in downtown Chicago was electric.
That sense of appreciation for Biden did not extend outside the DNC’s security perimeter to nearby Union Park, where thousands of pro-Palestine and pro-ceasefire protesters gathered every day as part of the March on the DNC, a weeklong series of rallies, protests and marches organized by a coalition of over 200 organizations from across the country.
Cornel West, fresh off a press conference on Aug. 19 where he and fellow third-party presidential candidates Jill Stein and Claudia De la Cruz announced the official transition of their “Abandon Biden” movement to become the “Abandon Harris” movement, spoke to the crowd about the need for a ceasefire in Gaza and the end of military occupation in Palestine.
“This is not about a utilitarian calculation to win an election; this is about morality,” West said. “This is about spirituality. A lot of folks are excited about sister Harris, because she’s a Black sister from Jamaica, and from India, and we simply want to say, a black face in a high place in the same empire, the same predatory capitalist processes, the same policies of genocide, does not move us.
“It’s not a function of your skin pigmentation. It’s not a function of your gender. It’s not a function of your sexual orientation. What kind of moral substance do you have? What kind of ethical content do you have?”
Malkah Bird was in the crowd watching West, along with a group of people holding a large banner that read, “Jewish Hoosiers for Indiana.”
Bird, who serves on both the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) national board and the JVP Indiana chapter’s coordinating committee, said, “This is a march that is being led by Black and Palestinian organizers here in Chicago, that is endorsed by 241 different groups and organizations, and JVP Chicago is one of the groups that is in support of and endorsing this march. We came up from Indiana to join with the JVP Chicago group and in support of everybody who organized this and has the message today that there needs to be a permanent and immediate ceasefire and a complete arms embargo on Israel.”
When asked how she broaches this tough conversation with other Jewish folks or with people who have close ties to Israel, Bird said, “We know that we all share the value that human life is sacred, and everybody deserves freedom and safety. That is absolutely part of our Judaism or any religion, and so for us, that extends to everybody, to Palestinians. What we’re doing here today is representative of our beliefs. It’s the right thing for anyone to do, to stand up and support an end to war, an end to bombs, an end to genocide.”
An Israeli-American dual citizen named Oren, who came out to counterprotest against pro-Palestine protesters outside the Israeli consulate general on Aug. 20, had a different focus. Oren was holding an Israeli flag, and he pointed to his T-shirt, which read “Bring them home now!”
“I’m here to remind the world that this is the biggest issue we have right now,” he said. “We have 109 hostages. Basically, that is the most pressing issue right now. They need to bring them home.”
He said he and other Chicago locals walk every week in two locations to raise awareness about the Israeli hostages being held in Gaza, and that they never had any issues with anybody trying to get aggressive or physical in response.
“We have a group that walks to bring awareness to the plight of the hostages. We walk twice a week . . . never had any issues,” he said. “You have some hecklers saying, ‘Free Palestine,’ but that’s it. Freedom of speech, you know? They say whatever they have to say, we say whatever we have to say, and that’s it.”
Uncommitted Delegates
There was also a small but highly publicized strain of activism operating within the official structure of the DNC. While 34 of Rhode Island’s DNC delegates were committed to Biden and reallocated to Harris, Providence City Council Chief of Staff June Rose was officially designated as an “uncommitted” delegate.
The Democratic Party’s approach to delegate allocation across all states sees any candidate who meets a 15 percent threshold awarded delegates proportionally. Rose represents the 15.2 percent of Democratic primary voters in Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District (Newport County’s district), who joined a nationwide movement to vote “uncommitted” in the primary in protest of the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Rose, who in addition to working at Providence City Hall, is an active organizer with a Jewish-American human rights organization called IfNotNow, which organizes against the state of Israel’s policies of occupation and apartheid. Rose was one of 29 official uncommitted delegates from across the country.
Rose, alongside several uncommitted delegates held a 24-hour sit-in outside the United Center to protest the fact that the DNC would not be inviting a single Palestinian American speaker to take the stage during the four days of convention programming.
The Uncommitted movement was given an official DNC panel discussion, marking the first time the Palestinian perspective has ever been officially platformed by the DNC.
Taylor attended that panel discussion on Aug. 19, moderated by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and featuring Uncommitted co-founder Layla Elabed, former Michigan Congressman Andy Levin, Arab American Institute founder Jim Zogby, Democratic Party organizer Hala Hijazi, and Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric surgeon who served in Gaza. Taylor characterized the panelists as being “people with highly relevant experience with the current conflict,” and said she was particularly moved by Hijazi’s words.
“She’s still losing family members in Gaza, and she considers herself a moderate Democrat,” Taylor said. “She has worked on all kinds of Democratic issues. What she said that was so compelling was, ‘I have been there for you with the LGBTQ issues. I have been there for you with reproductive rights. Now, I need you to be there for me. This is my issue, Palestinian rights.’ It was very profound.”
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