It was the first week of July. News of the presidential election had been mired, for eight days, in alarming assessments of Joe Biden and that shambolic debate. The president had started but not finished sentences, slurred words and at points stood with his mouth slightly agape while his opponent, Donald Trump, ignored questions and lied without fact-check.
Now, on 6 July, inside New Orleans’s convention center, the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture was under way. Kamala Harris was set to speak, one of the vice-president’s biggest in-person events since Biden’s performance had seemingly upended the race. The attendees – mostly Black women, drawn to this long-running music-festival-meets-women’s-expo – were waiting to see Harris. Some were chattering about the possibilities: did her future lie at the top of the Democratic party’s ticket? What could, or should, happen next? The press corps now trailing Harris had swelled in size, and began to scribble notes and scramble for a look as Harris walked across the stage as the defiant second chorus of Beyoncé’s Freedom boomed. A rousing cheer came from the standing-room-only crowd in the cavernous, 600-seat room.
“Who is Kamala Harris?” Caroline Wanga, the CEO and president of Essence Ventures asked, as she began a “Chief to Chief” conversation, the live version of an interview published each month in Essence, the Black women’s magazine. The conversations are supposed to illuminate what makes the subjects human, their struggles and lessons learned, the moments of victory and defeat and what distinguishes Black women who lead.
