saturday, several presidential candidates spoke of the south carolina democratic party convention, one of several large campaign related events in the state over the weekend. south carolina has the largest electorate of the four early nominating states. is saturday, february 20 9, 2020, and followed by super tuesday votes with hundreds of delegates at stake. here are some of the convention speeches beginning with california senator kamala harris.

sen. harris: what's up, south carolina? it's good to be in the palmetto state. thank you all. thank you, thank you. i just want to start by thanking you, south carolina democrats. you all have been holding it down. you have so many other obligations but you keep giving and giving. we are all under this one roof together for one reason, which is that we love our country and we are prepared to fight for the best of who it is and who we are. we all know this is an inflection moment. this is a moment in time that is requiring us each to look in a mirror and ask a question. that question being, who are we? i think we all know, we are better than this. so this is the moment in time where we will fight to the best of our country.

i want to congratulate trav on a great convention and thank everybody. here is the thing. we know that as democrats and as those who are leaders who take it upon ourselves to do everything in our ability and power to lift folks up, to tap on our neighbor, on our friend who may be sitting on the pew next to us, to tap on the shoulder of our coworkers and our family members, we know that part of the strength of who we are is not only the values that we hold, the principles by which we conduct ourselves, our faith, our vision for the future. our strength is also that we know how to organize, how to do the critical work that must be done everyday to make sure that we get our message across and that we accomplish our goals

because we also know that in order to fight for the best of who we are to fight for our values and see them reflected in our elected leaders, we know we must elect the right people. we know elections matter. we know who holds those important positions will make decisions about our lives. so we want to make sure the people who are there are conducting themselves in a way that is about our interest and not their self interests. and so i believe as it relates to who we have is president of the united states, we need not only a leader of our country but we need a leader of our party. we need somebody who as president of the united states understands the need to rebuild the party, who understands the need to give the resources and the support to the people who are on the ground every day doing the hard work. we can't just helicopter in here. we have to support the people who are on the ground who know the community and do the work

every day, and that's the kind of precedent i intend to be. -- president i intend to be. south carolina, you have such a rich and deep history of fighters. you have the fighters who have always fought for the conscience and for the morals of our country. those great civil rights fighters past and present. just last week we commemorated the four-year anniversary of the emmanuel nine, recognizing those heroes and their sacrifice and the fact that still there is so much to fight for in our country. we look at the great heroes and leaders who have come out of south carolina, the friendship nine. we look at the orangeburg protesters and we know they believed in a nation, they believed in a nation of equality where everyone counted. they were deep of faith. they understood what can be,

unburdened by what has been. it is upon their shoulders that we now stand, charged with the duty and responsibility of understanding what can be, and fighting to get there. that is our responsibility. you know i was raised in a , family of civil rights fighters. i was raised in a community where we were taught don't you hear no when they say it. know where we are and see the vision and be deep of faith in knowing that you can see what maybe others can't see, but you can help them get there. you can help them get there, but it will take a lot of work. it will take a lot of work. i stand before you as a candidate for president of the united states prepared to do the work of helping our nation see what can be, unburdened by what has been, and see the vision of the future respecting our past. i know that we have in this white house a president who says he wants to make america great again.

well, what does that mean? does that mean he wants to take us back to before schools were integrated? does that mean he wants to take us back before the voting rights act was enacted? does that mean he want to take us back before the civil rights act was enacted? does he want to take us back before roe v. wade was enacted? because we are not going back. we are not going back. we see a future. we see a future, and i'm going to tell you, not only am i a child of parents who were active in civil rights fighters and mergers. -- marchers. i also had a career as a prosecutor. so let me tell you a little bit about that. i know how to take on predators. i took on the big banks and one over $20 billion. i took on for-profit colleges and put them out of businesses.

i took on oil companies who are polluting our environment. i took on transnational criminal organizations who are preying on women and children. i know how to get that job done. and i did it for the people. for the people. so let me tell you, we need some body on our stage when it comes time for that general election who knows how to recognize a rap sheet when they see it and prosecute the case. so let's read that rap sheet, shall we? yes, black americans. he said what do you have two , lose? hate crimes are up. we have a lot to lose. let's look at that rap sheet where he told working people he would help them, but instead passed a tax bill benefiting the top 1% and the biggest corporations of this country. said he would help the farmers. the past the trump trade tax.

trump trade policy by tweet and now we have farmers who have soybeans rotting in bins and autoworkers who may be out of their job by the end of the year. let's look at that rap sheet where he said he would give everyone health care, but he is still trying to rip health care away from folks and turn back the clock on obamacare. let's talk about looking at that rap sheet where he has embraced dictators like kim jong-un and putin and taken their word over the word of the american intelligence committee. let's prosecute the case. let's prosecute that case. and let's not turn back the clock. let's start the next chapter, shall we? let's start the next chapter. let's turn the page. here's what i see in that next chapter. i see us fighting for our america and what i call the 3:00 a.m. agenda. which means looking at writing that next chapter through the lens of what wakes us up in the middle of the night.

what is on our minds? what do we need to deal with? let's turn the page, south carolina and write that next , chapter in a way that we take action on paying people equally for the work that they do, be they women, paying our teachers what they deserve in terms of paying them their value. let's take action on getting $500 more a month to working families so they can get through the end of the month. let's take action and make sure that if congress doesn't have the courage to pass more gun safety laws, then we will get the job done. because i believe in an america, in our america, where you only have to work one job to have a roof over your head and put food on the table. i believe in an america where teachers are paid their value. i believe in america where no politician tells a woman what to do with her body. i believe in an america where

health care is a right and not a privilege for just those who can afford it. i believe in an america where children do not have to fear going to school for fear of a mass shooter. i believe in an america where we have a president who understands the greatest strength and the greatest power any one individual can have is not to beat people down, but to lift them up. so i'm here to ask you for your support. thank you, south carolina. ♪ ♪