With only a week until Election Day, Vice-President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are holding their final campaign rallies and crisscrossing the battleground states. Both candidates know the importance of every vote, and they are rallying their base in the closing days.

Vickie Newton, founder of The Village Celebration and Love Black History, traces the history of Black voters in America on the eve of the historic 2024 presidential election.

During the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, the female American flag bearer will be Coco Gauff, the 20-year-old tennis star. She will be the youngest flag bearer in American Olympic history. Basketball legend LeBron James has been selected as the male flag bearer.

Gauff said, “I was not expecting that.”

Delighted to be selected, Gauff admitted she has “no idea” what her assignment includes, adding, “I don’t know if there’s flag bearer-training I have to go to.”

James has been to the Olympics four times. He was part of U.S. teams that won bronze in 2004, gold at Beijing in 2008 and gold again in London in 2012.

But this will be his first time as the flag bearer.

He said, “It’s an absolute honor. I hope I continue to make my community proud and continue to make my family proud.”

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The stunning news of President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race coalesced into a groundswell of support for Vice-President Kamala Harris, who Biden endorsed for the Democratic nomination. One by one, Democratic members of Congress announced their endorsement as did former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And donors contributed millions through the fundraising platform ActBlue, which reported a $49.6 million haul in less than 24 hours.

Civic organizations moved quickly to add momentum to Biden’s endorsement. WinWithBlackWomen converted its weekly virtual meeting into a webinar allowing 44,000 women to join the historic discussion about the possibility of the first woman Vice-President also becoming the first female president. Organizers say they raised more than $1.5 million in three hours.

“Sometimes when you’re in the middle of history, you don’t even know it,” explained Ray Winbush, Director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University. “But people jumped in with support of Vice-President Harris. I support her.”

As Republicans rushed to regroup following Biden’s change of plans, Winbush cited a “breath of relief” from American voters who expressed dissatisfaction with a Biden-Trump rematch.

Next Steps

Some former Nikki Haley supporters, committed to keeping Trump from winning re-election, announced their endorsement of Harris. The group was named Haley Voters for Biden, but members seized the momentum surrounding Biden’s endorsement of Harris and renamed itself, Haley Voters for Harris.

“There is no time to lose,” the group said.

The Democrats will begin their convention on August 19. Between now and then, Harris will likely announce her running mate. Three Democratic governors have been mentioned: Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear from Kentucky and North Carolina’s Roy Cooper.

When voters elected Biden and Harris to the White House in 2020, Black voters supported the ticket, applauding Biden’s delivery on his campaign promise to choose a Black woman as his running mate.

At that time, he also said, “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else … they are the future of this country.”

With his decision to step down, the longtime public servant has kept his word, again, and passed the torch to a new generation led by the Black woman he chose as his Vice-President.