Page 33 of 107 Days

I did twenty-seven drafts of my convention speech. I knew what was riding on it.

It was my best chance to grab the attention of voters who did not know me.

It would be my opportunity to introduce or reintroduce myself to the American people.

I needed to tell them who I was, what had shaped me, why I was running.

I needed to prosecute the case against Trump and then explain my own vision for the country. All in forty minutes.

As we worked on the final draft, Adam Frankel came down with Covid. He retreated to quarantine in his hotel room. We’d been working closely together, and he was terrified he had infected me. Fortunately, he had not. On the phone, we continued the work of refining, line by line, word by word.

While I sat in the green room waiting to go onstage, I saw that Opal, my body person, had thoughtfully placed photographs—my mother at a protest, me and my grandfather—the people I loved who were missing from the room that night.

So many people who formed me had died. I believe you can tell a lot about who a person is when you know who their people are.

But many of my people aren’t here. My mother, my grandfather, my “second mother” Mrs. Shelton, my aunt Mary, my uncle Sherman, my uncle Freddie.

I was grateful for the ones who were: Cousin Sharada, Uncle Balu, my chitti Chinni.

(Chinni is my mother’s youngest sister.) In Tamil, there’s no exact equivalent word for “aunt.” The word chitti translates as “younger mother.” I actually have two younger mothers: my chitti Sarala couldn’t make the trip from India.)

The movie director Greta Gerwig had helped me rehearse. Her combination of gentleness and strength, modesty and smarts, made it clear how she’d managed to elicit so many great performances. “When you speak about your family,” she advised, “see their faces.”

A professional voice coach had also offered to come limber up my vocal presentation.

She was very serious about her job, but she wanted me to stand there and emit animal noises.

For cover, I enlisted my entire team to join me.

We could all be embarrassed together as we made the weird hums, grunts, and trills she instructed us to produce.

We’d practiced in a room set up within the hotel to mimic the layout of the stage. In rehearsal, I walked out into the makeshift circle of stars that marked the speaker’s place, waving foolishly at nobody.

When I walked out for real, the crowd was on their feet, roaring.

It took many minutes to quiet them. I wanted to share the nuances of my background, including my mother’s extraordinary journey, her act of love and self-determination in marrying my father—a fellow student, studying economics, from Jamaica—instead of returning to India, as expected, to an arranged marriage.

Although they separated when I was five, I am grateful to my father for many things, including instilling a sense of fearlessness in me.

When we’d go to the park, my mother would say, “Stay close,” but he would say, “Run, Kamala, run, don’t be afraid, don’t let anything stop you. ”

I wanted people to see that in ways that matter, my story was also their story.

To see themselves in our neighborhood of nurses and firefighters, in my sister and me on our banana-seat bikes, in my mother’s struggle to save the down payment to finally own our own home.

I wanted people to know that I, like them, cherish both my family by blood and my family by love.

I recounted how I’d chosen to be a prosecutor after my best friend in high school confided that she was being molested by her stepfather.

I said that when I had a case, I charged it not in the name of the victim, but in the name of the people.

Because a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us, and no one who is a victim should stand alone.

I told how every day, in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and I said five words: “Kamala Harris, for the people.” In my career, I said, I’ve only had one client: the people.

“And so, on behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender, or the language your grandmother speaks; on behalf of my mother, and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey; on behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with—people who work hard, chase their dreams, and look out for one another; on behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America.”

There had been speculation that Chicago might erupt in violence as it did in 1968 during the Vietnam War.

That hadn’t happened. Minyon’s team had worked closely with Chicago police, everyone on the same page regarding the importance of respecting free speech and practicing de-escalation if things got heated.

The Gaza protests outside the convention remained mostly peaceful.

Inside, also, Minyon had made sure that every delegation had a veteran whip, someone with long experience of conventions, taking the temperature of their delegates and working for solidarity.

But there was tension and some bitterness that we had not given a speaking slot to a Palestinian spokesperson.

I knew that the section of my speech dealing with the Gaza war had a lot riding on it.

As David Von Drehle wrote in The Washington Post , it was “the rockiest, most perilous passage: her 5.0-degree-of-difficulty straddle on the war in Gaza. She charged right in and defended Israel, and just as it felt as though the room might split, she affirmed the humanity and suffering of the Palestinians. She then moved into a peroration on the subject that everyone was able to cheer for. And, behold, she had her boat through the impossible strait.”

Jon Favreau, who had been director of speech writing in the Obama White House, remarked on his show, Pod Save America , “She looked and sounded more presidential in this convention speech than almost any other candidate I’ve ever seen accept the nomination…

Her presentation, her delivery, her confidence—it was a sight to behold. ”