Oprah Winfrey made a surprise appearance at day three of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, delivering powerful remarks in which she touched on Kamala Harris’ history-making nomination for president – and offered a dig at now-viral comments made by Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance.
Winfrey, 70, took the stage on Wednesday, Aug. 21, telling the crowd at Chicago’s United Center that Harris — who officially secured the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination earlier this month — is passionate about “justice and freedom and the glorious, fighting spirit necessary to pursue that passion.”
“And soon, and very soon, we’re going to be teaching our daughters and sons about how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father — two idealistic immigrants — grew up to become the 47th president of the United States,” Winfrey said. “That is the best of America.”
In her remarks, Winfrey touched on the night’s theme of “freedom,” saying, “there are people who want you to see our country as a nation of us against them, people who want to scare you, who want to rule you.”
Oprah Winfrey.
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty
“People who’d have you believe that books are dangerous and assault rifles are safe. That there’s a right way to worship, and a wrong way to love … but here’s the thing: when we stand together, it is impossible to conquer us,” she added.
Elsewhere in her speech, Winfrey said that, even amid our divisions, most human beings “would still help you in a heartbeat if you were in trouble.”
When a house is on fire, Winfrey said, “we don’t ask” about the homeowners’ race or religion — “We just try to do the best we can to save them.”
“And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady — well, we try to get that cat out, too,” Winfrey said in a nod to Vance’s remarks, in which he said the country under Joe Biden was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives.”
Winfrey’s on-stage remarks were preceded by the short film, American Family: A Film About Freedom, directed by portrait photographer Platon and filmmaker and journalist Scott Dadich and produced by Godfrey Dadich Partners.
The video features interviews with a range of individuals, couples and families — traditional, LGBTQ+, and chosen families — about what “freedom” means to them.
Winfrey spoke in 2020, days after Harris was projected to become the first woman vice-president as well as the first Black or Asian person to hold the office.
“I think what she means for women of the world is so extraordinary. For women here in the United States, we can’t even measure it,” Winfrey says. “Because to see someone who looks like you in this role, you see what’s possible for yourself. Period.”
