Kamala Harris, First Woman Elected Vice President, Addresses the Nation: ‘I May Be the First, I Won’t Be Last’

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) addressed the nation Saturday night as the first woman of color ever elected to the vice presidency.

“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” she said.

She thanked supporters for continued work during Donald Trump’s presidency.

“For four years, you marched and organized for our lives, for our planet, then you voted. You chose hope, unity, decency, science, and, yes truth,” she said.

Invoking the late Congressman John Lewis, she said, “Democracy is not a state. It is an act. America’s democracy is not guaranteed…When our very democracy on the line, with soul of America at stake, with the world watching, you ushered in a new day for America.”

Harris, a senator from Oakland, California, is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants. She attended Howard University and is also the first person from a historically Black college to occupy the White House.

Her speech took on added significance in light of Trump’s repeated attacks on her while on the campaign trail. In August, he called her “not competent” and suggested his daughter, Ivanka, would be a more suitable candidate for the White House. Trump and many of his GOP allies have also mocked her by going out of their way to mispronounce her name, which Harris dismissed as “childish” and “predictable.”