[ad_1]
Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris speaks with her supporters at a celebratory event that took place outside the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, USA, on November 7, 2020. According to media reports, Biden defeated the President Donald Trump in the 2020 US Presidential Election to become the 46th President of the United States. (Photo: EPA-EFE / ANDREW HARNIK / POOL)
Across the country, on Saturday, November 7, Americans celebrated in the streets the announcement of Joe Biden as president-elect. New York City was delighted.
This reporter was walking down East Houston Avenue, New York (NYC), towards the iconic restaurant Katz Delicatessen, gazing at one of their famous pastrami sandwiches around 11:27 a.m. on Saturday, November 7, when several cars suddenly began honking. At first, the sound of the horn reminded me of several fender crashes downtown, but smiling faces peeking out of cars, waving and yelling “Biden!” It could only mean one thing: Joe Biden had just been announced as president-elect of the United States.
Later at 8:28 p.m. that night, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, in a classy cream / ivory pantsuit, would take the stage at the Chase Center in Delaware and tell a hopeful and relieved nation, relieved that the protracted election was finally over – that:
Congressman John Lewis wrote before his passing; Democracy is not a state, it is an act … America’s democracy is not guaranteed, it is as strong as our will to fight for it. “Harris also honored his mother:” And the woman most responsible for me. I’m here today, my mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris… ”Harris paid tribute to Black, Latina and Native American women and their struggles in the United States.
Harris said of President-elect Joe Biden: “You chose Joe Biden as the next president of the United States of America, and Joe is a healer, a unifier, a tried and steady hand.”
(Read the late Congressman John Lewis’s full essay here: New York Times.)
President-elect Joe Biden stood as firm as Harris described, when he opened his victory speech with:
“Friends, the people of this nation have spoken. They have given us a clear victory, a resounding victory. A victory for ‘we the people’: we have won with the highest number of votes cast in a presidential candidacy in the nation’s history, 74 million ”.
But it would be late on Saturday, after the sun went down, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as the waiting new residents of the White House, would address the nation.
Hours before Biden and Harris’ public appearance, Americans were joyfully celebrating what the vice president-elect would later call a “new day for America.”
At 11:25 a.m., Americans let out a suppressed sigh for five days, and in bright, summery New York City, many took to the streets to show their joy at the result. T-shirts, posters, balloons, Biden masks and musical instruments took to the streets.
Solo musicians played instruments in the streets, band members gathered and improvised, DJs who had prepared for the rallies turned up the volume as many planned rallies went from protest to party as the news spread through the city. Various civic groups like Black Lives Matter and Workers Movement Unite came together to show mutual support and shared goals.
People waved and honked from moving cars, pedestrians waved back and gave them a thumbs-up. Strangers on the street yelled “Biden!”, Slapped their elbows, and kept repeating this action with the next person they saw.
New York State is Biden blue and proud of him, some residents show that the changing of the guard could not come soon enough.
It was clear that people greeted each other when what they really wanted to do was hug. There were masks everywhere, but it was clear to people’s eyes that there were only smiles underneath. Social distancing, at the time, was not commonly observed, although most people did their best not to touch or stand too close to others.
#CircleColumbus #New York This afternoon, people gathered (near a building owned by Trump) to celebrate the result of # Election2020 President elect @Joe Biden and his vice president @KamalaHarris 🙌🏾 pic.twitter.com/06AGqXxFkO
– A Wentzel (@ThefabulousAn) November 8, 2020
In Manhattan, Columbus Circle was a convergence point for New Yorkers to come together and celebrate their new president-elect and the historic moment when Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris became the first woman and woman of color. to be vice president of the United States.
Pride flags and shirts were everywhere …
This writer overheard two men talking while lowering boards over a storefront in New York. First man (white): “How do you feel, your boy lost, right?” Second man: “Trump? I’m a gay man living in New York City, why the hell would I vote for Trump? ” DM
An Wentzel is Night Editor, a journalist for the Daily Maverick, she went to the United States to visit her family when the pandemic hit and is currently abandoned in the land of the ‘free’.
[ad_2]
