By INDIANAPOLIS — Mechell Harris landed here for the historically Black sorority Zeta Phi Beta’s biennial convention thrilled that Democrats had quickly coalesced around Vice President Harris as the party’s likely nominee for president.
Harris, an entrepreneur from Charlotte in her 50s who is Black, thought of her mother, who might live to see a barrier-breaking moment she felt would herald a “shift in the way America is thinking” — a Black and Indian American woman elected to the highest office.
But does she think Harris will win? She paused and sighed deeply. That was a tougher question.
“I hope she wins,” she said, with some hesitation.
“The reality is people think the way they think,” she added as she finished her lunch Tuesday inside the Indiana Convention Center. “I would like to believe it. She has a big chance if you’re not discounting her as a woman and a minority.”
Some 6,000 Black women from across the country have gathered here to celebrate at the Grand Boulé — where Vice President Harris is set to speak on Wednesday just three days after President Biden announced he was withdrawing from the presidential race and supporting Harris as his successor. Much of the Democratic Party quickly joined him in backing Harris, prompting relief and even jubilation among many Democrats.
It has also stirred some nervousness, interviews with more than a dozen Black women at the convention showed. Although some confidently said they think Harris will beat former president Donald Trump, citing her relative youth and credentials as a former San Francisco prosecutor, California attorney general and U.S. senator before becoming vice president, others were less assured. Some confessed they don’t think she can win — not because she isn’t qualified, but because of sexism and racism in America.
“The White guy would’ve won against another White guy,” said Lora Rice, 55, an operating room nurse from Georgia. “I don’t think she’s going to win.”
Rice’s friend Stephanie Stephens-Lanham, 54, nodded in agreement. “Kamala is going to have a hard time,” she said, sporting a T-shirt with Zeta Phi Beta’s Greek letters in the sorority’s royal blue and white colors. “I’m just being honest. She’s a woman and she’s Black. So she’s not going to win.”
“If you had your eyes closed and you just go based on her qualifications versus [Trump’s] qualifications, yes, she’d definitely win,” Rice added. “But they’re not going to do that.”
Harris’s critics have a history of lobbing personal and sometimes racist and sexist attacks on her. Trump has called her “nasty” and he and other Republicans have often mispronounced her first name.
Both Rice and Stephens-Lanham said they felt Biden had a much better chance of beating Trump, even as polls showed him trailing in key battlegrounds. Rice groaned as she talked about Biden, saying, “He could’ve stayed afloat long enough to get in and then step out.”
Stephens-Lanham, a clinical laboratory scientist, disagreed with Rice. It was disheartening and sad to see him drop out, she said, but it needed to happen. He was too old to run and everyone knew it, she added.
Not so, Rice retorted: “When Biden stepped down, he gave it straight to Trump.”
“And now it’s on her. Black people always take the trash part, always take the blame,” she added.
Still, both women vowed to work hard to try to turn out voters for Harris — a position that some women across the convention center echoed. Even those who weren’t sure Harris could win marveled at the idea of a fellow member of the Divine Nine, the group of historically Black sororities and fraternities, rising to the presidency.
In 2020, exit polls showed 90 percent of Black women voted for Biden, by far the highest of any one group of voters. In this year’s race, they are expected to once again play a pivotal role in key swing states that could decide the winner.
Harris, who graduated in 1986 from Howard University, where she was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, has participated in several Divine Nine events since taking office. Earlier this month, she spoke at the AKA convention, urging her sorority sisters to back the Biden-Harris ticket.
On Wednesday, Harris is expected to tout the achievements of the Biden-Harris administration. The White House coordinated the remarks weeks ago, and it is not a campaign appearance.
But most everywhere Harris goes these days, the election is on the minds of many people. Longtime friends Brenda Butler, 69, and Mercedes Alexander, 74, both from Little Rock, couldn’t recall a moment they had felt more energized about the election.
Alexander said she donated to Harris’s effort twice on Sunday — once with her credit card, and once with her husband’s. He didn’t know, she said with a laugh.
Over pulled-pork sandwiches from a convention center kiosk, they offered different perspectives on what will come next.
“It was a breath of fresh air. I feel more secure now,” Alexander said of Biden’s decision.
Butler, a retired educator, had more reservations. “I kind of wanted him to stay in because I don’t do well with a lot of change. But I see why he did it for the good of the group,” she said.
“And that he put it in good hands,” Alexander interjected.
“She’s smart. She’s very qualified to be president and she’s forceful. She gets her message out. And she’s Greek!” Alexander said, nodding to Harris being an AKA.
Arleace Carrion, 64, and Barbara Gardner, 68, had beaming smiles on their faces and kept talking over each other as they expressed how ecstatic they were to see Harris become the likely Democratic nominee.
Carrion couldn’t remember the last time she had used Facebook but on Sunday night she immediately got back on and has been posting nonstop in support of Harris.
One post included a photo of women from different sororities in the Divine Nine. Her caption read: “Let’s do it I am strolling with her.” She reshared another post from a Black Women for Kamala account that said: “Let’s stroll to the polls, D9 Sistahs !!!” And as she scrolled on her news feed, it was clear several of her Facebook friends felt similarly.
“It’s not that we’re voting for her because she’s” Black, said Carrion, a retired clinical trial coordinator who lives in Miami. “We’re voting for her because she’s qualified.”
“And because of what she stands for,” added Gardner, a retired educator from Miami who sported a pearl necklace with Zeta’s Greek letters on it. “She’s fighting for all people. Not just Blacks, all people.”
Asked if she was worried about Harris’s prospects, Gardner immediately shooed away the question. “Don’t put that negativity out there,” she said.
“It’s in God’s hands.”