Our Endorsement and Demands of Kamala Harris

Truth Telling and the Fight for Freedom: 

Our Endorsement and Demands of Kamala Harris

“Sometimes it seems like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I’ll fall five-feet four-inches forward in the fight for freedom. I’m not backing off.”

― Fannie Lou Hamer

We are clear-eyed about the choices in front of us and what this moment demands. During this 2024 general election season, we are prioritizing the presidential race on the federal level and the attorney general’s race on the state level. With deep hope, a commitment to accountability and the backing of our movement, Amistad Movement Power endorses Kamala Harris for President and Tim Walz for Vice President. Additionally, we endorse Eugene Depasquale for Pennsylvania Attorney General. Our endorsements are not a blank check in either race–they come with demands to which we will hold all the candidates accountable. Nevertheless, we are determined to block Donald Trump and the far right MAGA faction from taking power.  

The Present Danger

We know that if Donald Trump assumes the presidency once again, he will work to consolidate his power and fill the federal government with people who are loyal to him and his authoritarian aims. He has promised to set up mass immigrant concentration camps on the US border which will result in more devastation and death. He has gone beyond the already violent mainstream US foreign policy viewpoint by embracing Netayahu and indicating that he will give even more of a green light for genocide in Gaza. He has also vowed to surge federal prosecutors and the National Guard into Black and brown communities. There is no equivalence. We are still suffering from the impact of his last disastrous presidency. We would all suffer much more under a second Trump administration with a Project 2025/Agenda 47 roadmap.

What You Told Us

Over the course of one week, we polled our base–you–and overwhelmingly, you wanted to not just campaign against Trump but for the Harris/Walz ticket. We agree with and trust the wisdom of the multiracial coalition, led by people directly impacted by mass incarceration in Pennsylvania, that makes up our beautiful and multifaceted movement family. Indeed, you have been at the forefront of every fight for progress in the commonwealth for at least the past decade. Our movement has been a major driver in several elections since the election of DA Larry Krasner in Philadelphia in 2017. We have had the privilege of lifting candidates that come from our movement to victory but we are also practical. Some fights are defensive.

Not Backing Off

In 1964, SNCC leader and civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer went to the DNC in Atlantic City with delegates and a mission to tell the truth. It was a truth that the mainstream Democratic Party went to great lengths to prevent being heard, with President Lyndon Johnson calling a farcical press conference to divert media attention during her testimony.

Her truth got out anyway, and America bore witness to her story–that Black people in Mississippi and throughout the segregated South were facing extreme violence for their attempt to participate in the political process.

Sixty years later, the Democratic Party continues to struggle with hearing the truth. We stand with the Uncommitted Movement (which we endorsed in the presidential primary), whose delegates made their presence known at this year’s DNC and continue to lead a principled fight to demand an arms embargo and shift the current Democratic regime’s allegiance to Israel as it kills countless people in Gaza.  

Our mandate is clear–we must block fascism, but we will not be silent about our demands. If elected, Kamala Harris must: 

• Stop sending arms to Israel and aiding and abetting a genocide carried out on the people of Gaza; and 
• Repair the harm of her history of propping up mass incarceration by committing to passing anti-carceral policies and legislation, including the Community Safety Agenda at the federal level. 

We often describe voting in defensive political contests as choosing the terrain on which we fight. We know it is going to be a fight either way, so we consider which terrain is more favorable to us in this struggle. Another way of looking at it is leverage. We have no leverage over a future Trump administration whose power rests on a far right MAGA coalition of right wing libertarian tech billionaires and white Christian nationalists fixated on ending immigration and criminalizing abortion. The coalition that undergirds the Democratic Party is complicated, but it includes young people with progressive ideas, unions and Black and brown communities across the country. There is the potential that we can have influence within that coalition if we organize, make some noise and assert ourselves. And that is what we must do. 

At this moment, we must stop the MAGA movement from ascending to power once again while asserting our demands over the Democrats and fighting for the future we deserve. We cannot afford to fall into either blind cheerleading or false claims that there is some sort of equivalence between the two major parties. They are certainly not as distinct as we would like them to be and yet, for a plethora of reasons including reproductive justice, labor and the extent to which they support or oppose criminal legal reform, they are not the same. However, we must hold the Democratic Party accountable and our communities must fight to have more influence within that party. This is a choice about having more breathing room to continue the fight.

The Stakes of the Attorney General Race

In the first year and a half of the Shapiro/Davis administration the rate of commutations has fallen precipitously. Eugene Depasquale has progressive viewpoints on criminal legal reform that have been shaped by the experience of having his father incarcerated for many years. We think he will be a positive force for change at the Board of Pardons which is greatly needed at this moment. 

For all these reasons and more, we endorse the VP Kamala Harris for President, Gov. Tim Walz for Vice President and Eugene Depasquale for Pennsylvania Attorney General. 

On Tuesday, November 5th, vote in defense of our communities and–no matter who is elected–stay ready in the fight for our lives.