Beyoncé has welcomed Kamala Harris on stage, with her song Freedom playing in the background.
“It’s time to sing a new song,” Beyoncé said. “Our generations of loved ones before us are whispering a prophecy, a quest, a calling, an anthem, our moment right now. It’s time for America to sing a new song.”
Key events
Kamala Harris has just shared the story of Kate Cox, a Texas woman who was denied emergency abortion care by the Texas Supreme Court, and is introducing Shanette Williams, the mother of Amber Nicole Thurman.
“Amber Nicole Thurman, I promised her mother, I would speak her name, a vibrant 28 year old mother of a six year old son who died of preventive death because of Georgia’s abortion ban,” Harris said.
Harris has continued, denouncing Republican leaders who have neglected maternal and infant healthcare while denying abortion care across the US.
“For decades, these extremist leaders, who have neglected prenatal care, maternity care and postpartum care, and who now continuously failing support women and children, claim to care of women and children. I have a question for them, where you been?” Harris said. “Where have you been when it comes to helping pregnant women and new mothers? Where have you been when it comes to affordable child care?”
“The hypocrisy abounds,” she said, before showing a video combining testimony of families who’ve suffered under abortion bans alongside Donald Trump saying he did “a great thing” by appointing the Supreme court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.
Speaking onstage at her rally in Houston, Kamala Harris is making a powerful call for reproductive rights.
“You are ground zero in the fight for reproductive freedom,” she said. “We know what’s happening here in Texas, doctors and nurses could go to prison for life simply for providing reproductive care.”
“Texas has a law now that offers a cash bounty for turning in someone who merely helps a friend or a family member get the care they need,” Harris added. “In some counties in Texas, they have passed travel bans to prevent women from going to other states to receive care.”
“When Donald Trump was president, he hand selected the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v Wade, and as he intended, they did. And now more than 20 states have a Trump abortion ban.”
“Now, one in three American women live in a state with a Trump abortion ban,” she said. “And let us agree, one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply help to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body.”
Beyoncé has welcomed Kamala Harris on stage, with her song Freedom playing in the background.
“It’s time to sing a new song,” Beyoncé said. “Our generations of loved ones before us are whispering a prophecy, a quest, a calling, an anthem, our moment right now. It’s time for America to sing a new song.”
Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland appear at Houston rally
Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland are speaking onstage at the Harris rally in Houston.
“We are grabbing back the pen to write a new American story, a story of community, of equality, strength, of kindness and of hope,” Rowland said. “When I was a little girl and I pledged allegiance to the United States of America, that flag meant something to me, and today that means grabbing that pen and casting my vote as I already did two days ago, for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”
“I’m not here as a celebrity. I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said. “Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations.”
“Your voice has power and magnitude. Your vote is one of the most valuable tools. And we need you. Your freedom is your God given right, your human right,” she added.
Tina Knowles, an American businesswoman, fashion designer and mother of Beyoncé, is speaking now at Harris’ rally in Houston.
“I’ve been so blessed to have many careers, many Black jobs,” Knowles opened, referencing Donald Trump’s statement that immigrants are going to take so-called “Black jobs” from Black Americans. “The best job that I’ve ever had is being a mother.”
“I’m so proud to be here with two of my daughters,” Knowles said, before welcoming her daughter Beyoncé and good friend Kelly Rowland.
After a long intermission, Ondrea Cummings has begun speaking at the Harris rally in Houston. Cummings, a resident of San Antonio, is featured in a new ad that the Harris campaign released earlier this week, telling her story of nearly dying after a pregnancy complication.
New ad from the Harris campaign on reproductive freedom, ahead of the VP’s speech in Texas on Friday. This is a very tough one to watch, but it’s incredibly important to. Thank you so much to Ondrea and Ceasar for trusting us to share their story. pic.twitter.com/ytJQg2ONiv
— Lauren Hitt (@LaurenHitt) October 23, 2024
“In the fall of 2022, after many prayers, my husband and I found out that we were expecting. Everything changed when my one evening far too early into my pregnancy, after going to the ER and my OB GYN, and learning that my pregnancy was not viable, I was given no options. Despite being at high risk for infection because of Texas extreme laws, I was told I had to wait, which I did in the hospital for days,” Cummings said.
“My baby girl, Emery J, was born five days after my water broke. She lived only for a few minutes, but I hold my baby close to my heart,” she said, describing how she developed a severe infection that left her hospitalized for three weeks afterward.
“Today is the first time I’m sharing my story. It’s taken many months of physical and emotional healing to get where I am today,” Cummins said. “Texas abortion bans unleashed by Donald Trump almost cost me my life,” she added before noting that Black and brown womens’ pain is often ignored.
The Harris campaign reports that 30,000 people are at her Houston rally tonight, the largest crowd to date for her campaign.
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Colin Allred, the Democratic congressman running to unseat Texas senator Ted Cruz, is speaking at Kamala Harris’ rally in Texas, denouncing his opponent and recalling his experience in Congress on January 6.
“I believe in a very different Texas than Ted Cruz does,” Allred said. “My time in Congress, I’ve been the exact opposite of Ted Cruz, because I never forgot where I came from, never forgot the folks who gave me a chance. I’ve been the most bipartisan Texan in Congress, because that’s how you get things done.”
“Ted Cruz is too small for Texas,” Allred said, recalling how Cruz took refuge in a supply closet during the January 6 attack on the Capitol while Allred prepared to defend his colleagues, using the strength he says he built as an NFL linebacker, and how Cruz fled the state during a deadly winter storm.
He went on to lead the crowd in a chant of “You gotta lose your job.”
Amanda and Josh Zurawski, a Texas couple who sued the state after Amanda was unable to access treatment for a life-threatening pregnancy complication, are speaking now at Kamala Harris’ rally in Houston.
“After 18 months of grueling fertility treatments in the spring of 2022 we were thrilled to find out that she was pregnant with our first baby, a girl. We were over the moon,” Josh said.
“My first trimester was smooth sailing, but suddenly at 18 weeks, I suffered complications we were, with 100% certainty going to lose our baby girl. We were devastated. What I needed at that point was an abortion so that I could safely and with dignity, deliver our daughter and begin the healing process,” Amanda added.
“But this was Post Roe Texas, the near total abortion ban had gone into effect just two days after Amanda’s water broke, ending the pregnancy would have been illegal abortion under the Texas ban, our doctor risked losing her license and even face jail time,” Josh continued. “Eventually, Amanda’s temperature spiked. She was shaking and disoriented. We rushed to the emergency room, and by this time, Amanda had developed an infection, which had become septic.”
“I was finally close enough to death to deserve health care in Texas,” Amanda said.
“It is unthinkable to me that anyone could cheer on the cruel abortion bans that nearly took Amanda’s life, but that’s exactly what Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have done,” Josh said. “The decision about if and when to start a family should be ours to make. Not Donald Trump’s, not Ted Cruz’s. That’s why we need to elect vice president Harris, representative Colin Allred and Democrats up and down the ballot to restore our reproductive freedom.”
Lifelong Texan and beloved musician Willie Nelson is on stage at the rally performing Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys and On the Road Again.
The 91-year-old Texan wore his signature braids and red bandana as he performed on stage with a band.
Yesenia Gamez Gamboa, a Tucson-area immigration lawyer, is sharing her experience healing from an ectopic pregnancy and pursuing IVF in order to conceive a family with her husband.
“Access to a safe and quick abortion was what saved my life and preserved my fertility and now those very same protections are gone,” she said, on stage at Kamala Harris’ Houston rally.
“I trust women to make decisions over their own bodies, and I trust Texas Women to tell men like Ted Cruz. JD Vance and Donald Trump that they are done, their turn is over.”
Kamala Harris’s campaign is playing another ad between speakers at its Houston rally. This one features a woman who recalls being impregnated by her abusive stepfather at the age of 12.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was a child. I didn’t know what it meant to be pregnant at all. But I had options,” she says. “Because Donald Trump overturned Roe v Wade, girls and women all over the country have lost the right to choose, even for rape or incest. Donald Trump did this. He took away our freedom.”
Todd Ivey, a Houston-based OB-GYN, is speaking now at Kamala Harris’ rally in Texas, and is joined on stage with several colleagues in their white coats.
“Today in Texas, because of Donald Trump, I could be thrown in prison for life for providing reproductive health care,” Ivey said. “As a result, many of my patients with tragic pregnancy complications have been forced to flee up to get the health care that they need and that they deserve.”
“Nearly 7 in 10 OB-GYNs say that abortion bans have worsened their ability to manage pregnancy related emergencies, and here in Texas, three and four OBGYNs have said they simply can no longer practice evidence based medicine,” he added. “Tens of thousands of Texas women traveled out of state for abortion care last year, leaving their jobs, leaving their homes and leaving their families just to get medical care.”
“I was shocked when Roe was overturned, but I’ve never been more shocked to hear Donald Trump continue to brag about them,” Ivey said. “So let me be clear about one thing, there is no place for Donald Trump in my exam room.”
Between speakers at Kamala Harris’ rally in Houston, the campaign briefly displayed an ad featuring the family of Amber Nicole Thurman, a Georgia woman who died because of the state’s abortion ban.
“This is the result of what happens when you try to control a woman’s body. My daughter is gone because of what Donald Trump did. She would be here had they helped her,” Thurman’s mother, Shanette Williams, said in the video.
