Sen. @KamalaHarris stops in Flint at Magnificlips- a local downtown barber shop owned by Earl Jones and Tim Tyler. Due to the pandemic, their business was forced to shut down for a period of time one week after opening.
Harris was greeted by Senator Debbie Stabenow, who is wearing a black Biden/Harris face mask. Hard to hear but Harris talked to them about the challenges minority businesses owners face.
Sen. Kamala Harris taking a photo with a local business owner and her daughter. (Sen. Stabenow snapped the photo)
Crowd waiting with signs for Sen. Harris. She stepped inside a local business. @SymoneDSanders getting a shoutout from Flint residents though.
Sen. Kamala Harris stopped at a farmer’s market in Flint, talked with biz owners and residents. She stopped to chat with Flint mayor Sheldon Neely.
Worth noting Harris spent a significant amount of time speaking with biz owners in Flint. Across the country, Black owner businesses were especially hit hard by the pandemic. I wrote this June story detailing the impact in MI. apnews.com/de11d28607a35e…
Sen. Kamala Harris stopped at Drought in Royal Oak, a woman-owned cold pressed juice company. It’s in Oakland County — Michigan’s second largest county. Talking about the election, Harris said: “Everything’s at stake.”
Sen. Kamala Harris is now in Detroit at the Headliners Barbershop on the city’s west side for a socially distanced conversation with Black men. We’re in a part of the city that was hit especially hard by the Great Recession and has yet to fully recover — lots of blight remains.
“Shop Talk” program kicking off in Detroit with Sen. Kamala Harris, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist & Rev. Wendell Anthony. Harris: “MI starts voting in 48 hours & the outcome of this election will determine, I believe, the course of our country for generations to come.”
In response to a question from a Black college student who asked about racism in America, Harris says: “One of the biggest problems on the topic that you have raised is the failure to speak truth about America's history with race.”
On Trump: He can walk around, prancing around talking about he's for working people. What has he done for working people?" Notes the pandemic has disproportionately impacted Black & brown people. Says Trump is more concerned about how the pandemic has "hurt the stock market."
Lt. Gov. Gilchrist new 23 people who died of COVID, most were Black men. He notes Trump won MI in '16 by less than 11K votes: "The stakes are higher in this election for Black men than it has been in any of our lifetimes .. There are 11K Black men in MI who can turn that around."
Wrapping up, Sen. Kamala Harris talks about misinformation targeting Black voters. "They know when we vote we are powerful ... let us not them take our power ... in any form, including the power of our vote."
Knew*
Best moment of the day: After the shop talk wrapped, a Detroiter who was watching beyond the fence yelled “7 Mile the better mile.” Only Detroiters will understand why I almost hollered.
The last stop for the day is a voter mobilization event at the Detroit Pistons Performance Center in Detroit. Event kicked off by the Detroit Youth Choir.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on National Voter Registration Day urges residents to vote: “COVID-19 has shown us, who is in office can be life or death, who is in office determines whether or not we have leaders who are going to be focused on the people.” In MI, 6,680 have died of COVID.
Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence on Detroiters: ”In Detroit, you know we're tough. People talk about us all the time so we don't take no mess.”
Sen. Kamala Harris on Detroit: “There's so much that is about Detroit, as not only a measure of our country & its excellence, but also as a matter of the challenges that we face as a nation. And so Joe and I feel a particular sense of responsibility to be here and to be present.”
“We will keep coming back. Because so goes Michigan, so does the rest of the country as far as we are concerned.”
Harris now hammering Trump’s COVID-19 response & notes more than 200,000 have now died of the virus. “We have a commander in chief of the United States of America who is holding rallies with no masks ... We're talking about the president of the United States. We deserve better.”
Sen. @KamalaHarris: “I'm here in Detroit ... to honor the fact that the impact of these issues will have a grave consequence & impact in the state of Michigan & the city of Detroit ... I do believe that a path toward victory in this election runs straight through Michigan.”
I was wrong! One last stop at a campaign materials distribution location at the 14th congressional district office. AKAs out in full force this evening to support Sen. Kamala Harris with the pink and green.
And it’s a wrap on Sen. Kamala Harris’ Michigan trip tonight. Reporters tried to yell questions at Harris — she said she couldn’t hear us over the plane. Thanks for following along today.
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