Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, a guest in Kamala Harris' VIP suite on a historic night in Chicago, found inspiration in the presidential nominee's acceptance speech
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, the first Black woman to hold her office, said she felt inspired and energized as she watched Kamala Harris accept the Democratic nomination to accomplish the same feat for the highest office in the nation.
“It was also very pragmatic,” Parker said after Harris' speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “It was connected — connected to real people and what they are going through in their daily lives.”
Parker praised Harris for being a “straight shooter” in the speech and talking about the “opportunity economy,” a message Parker likened to her own oft-repeated goal of creating “economic opportunity for all” Philadelphians.
“It's not about giving anyone anything,” Parker said. “It's about using government as a tool to create access to opportunity.”
Parker was invited to watch the speech from Harris' own VIP suite in the United Center, sitting with celebrities like Don Cheadle and Spike Lee, members of Harris' family, and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Parker's special treatment at Harris' history-making speech provided a poetic bookend to a moment four years ago that helped both of them rise to power. In 2020, when she was running as President Joe Biden's running mate, Harris made her first in-person campaign stop since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in Philadelphia and made an appearance at an event in the backyard of Parker's Mount Airy home.
The trip was a political boon for Parker, who was then a City Council member plotting her 2023 mayoral run. And it helped connect Parker to Sinceré Harris, who was then serving in the Biden administration and later left the White House to be Parker's campaign manager. She is now a chief deputy mayor.
While she was watching Harris' speech Thursday, Parker said she was thinking about that day in 2020, which she said was “packed with potential and pregnant with possibilities.”
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