Vice President-elect Kamala Harris likened her response to images of the Confederate flag seen inside the U.S. Capitol last week to a 2017 white nationalist rally and seeing a picture of Emmett Till.
“It was the same thing that went through my mind when I saw Charlottesville. I mean, it’s the same thing that went through my mind when I saw a picture of Emmett Till,” Harris said during an interview with NPR on Thursday. Till was brutally murdered in 1955, when he was 14 years old, after he was accused of whistling at a white woman.
In 2017, white nationalists rallied in Charlottesville against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. President Trump was widely criticized for saying there were “very fine people on both sides” of the deadly protest, though supporters contend he was talking about the statue debate rather than referring to the white nationalists.
“Sadly, it is not the first time I have seen a demonstration like what you are describing in the history of our country,” Harris said, calling it “a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do.”
Pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in an effort to pressure lawmakers voting to certify the presidential election results. One person was seen carrying a Confederate flag around the Senate halls. Some insurgents chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”
Harris was at the Capitol that day and night to vote alongside her fellow senators.
The capital is on high alert ahead of next week’s inauguration, with up to 21,000 National Guardsmen expected to help provide security, with thousands prepared to detect against improvised explosive devices.
Harris and President-elect Joe Biden will take their oaths of office outside.
“I think we cannot yield to those who would try and make us afraid of who we are,” Harris told NPR when asked about the risks.
Asked if he felt safe ahead of the events next week, Biden told reporters on Friday that he did.
As she is sworn in, Harris said she will be thinking about the country and her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan.
“There will be a lot of thoughts going through my mind at that moment,” she said. “I will be thinking about my mother, who is looking down from heaven. I will be thinking about all of the people who are counting on us to lead and are counting on us to see them and to address their needs and the things that keep them up at night.”
The Biden transition team told the Washington Post it did not know if Harris’s father, who lives less than 3 miles from the U.S. Capitol, would be joining the events.
Senior Harris aides confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the vice president-elect talked to Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday, who congratulated her and offered her assistance in her forthcoming role.
Pence has said he will attend the swearing-in ceremony.
