Kamala Harriss 7-word comment at Jesse Jacksons | Political News

Political leaders, celebrities, and hundreds of members of the public gathered in Chicago on Friday, March 6, to honor the civil rights chief Reverend Jesse Jackson, who died last month.

Former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton, as properly as former Vice President Kamala Harris, delivered speeches at the memorial service at the House of Hope in Chicago, Illinois.

Harris delivered a highly effective speech that acquired a standing ovation, recalling the activist’s life and even subtly jabbing President Donald Trump’s administration. Before she took the stage, she appeared on video telling a seven-word comment into the introducer’s ear.

Lip reader Nicola Hickling analyzed Harris before her speech. “He was something else wasn’t he,” she claims the previous presidential contender said, exhibiting her deep admiration for Jackson.

As Harris started her remarks, she immediately spoke about the current state of the world in an obvious jab toward Trump, who was her opponent in the 2024 presidential election.

“Let me just start out by saying: I predicted a lot of what is happening right now,” she said while laughing. “I hate to say I told you so, but we did see it coming.”

Continuing, she famous, “But what I did not predict is that we would not have Jesse Jackson with us right now to help us get through this.”

What did Kamala Harris say in her Jesse Jackson funeral speech?

Harris’s speech drew laughter and applause as she recalled Jackson’s life, who was an influential chief of the Civil Rights Movement.

She held up two of Jackson’s buttons from when he ran for the presidency twice in 1984 and 1988. Harris read one of the buttons aloud: “Damn straight! It’s time for a Black presidential candidate!”

She called Jackson “impatient.” She added that “He did not waste time waiting, even when the doors in front of him were barred and bolted, even if those on the other side hesitated or even ignored him. He always devised a way through.”

Jackson founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 1996, which aims to protect, defend, and gain civil rights as well as promote peace and justice around the world. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. served as a model for him, as Jackson was in his inner circle after becoming the youngest Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) staff member.

In an X post following Jackson’s death on Feb. 17, Harris wrote that when she was a young law student driving from where she lived in Oakland to San Francisco for school, she had a bumper sticker on her car’s back window, which said, “Jesse Jackson for President.”

“As I would drive across the Bay Bridge, you would not believe how people from every walk of life would give me a thumbs up or honk of support,” she wrote. “They were small interactions, but they exemplified Reverend Jackson’s life work — lifting up the dignity of working people, building community and coalitions, and strengthening our democracy and nation.”

President Clinton awarded Jackson with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2000.

He died “peacefully” at age 84, “surrounded by household,” according to a assertion on Instagram.

“Our father was a servant chief — not only to our household, but to the oppressed, the unvoiced, and the missed around the world,” the Jackson household said. “We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”