As the Democratic National Convention starts Monday, three voting delegates from Pitt County likened their excitement about presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ run to the Obama era, saying they have high hopes for a unified policy platform.
Kennis Wilkins, a Greenville resident, former Martin County Democratic Party chairman and a member of the North Carolina Human Relation Commission, will join Pitt County Commissioners Ann Floyd Huggins and Melvin McLawhorn in Chicago for the convention, which runs through Aug. 22. Brenda Wilkins also serves as strategy support on the Democratic party platform, which will be unified at the convention.
The convention will be a first for McLawhorn, who has served as a commissioner since 2008 and is running unopposed this year. It also was his first time putting in his name to serve as a delegate. He joins two convention veterans in Wilkins, who said he has attended since John Kerry ran for president, and Floyd Huggins who said she has attended five conventions. In 2020, those two served as delegates from Wilkins’ backyard when the convention was remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s exciting,” said Floyd Huggins, who is in her second four-year term on the board of commissioners. “Everybody is just so energized. Everyone is so friendly and together and willing to help, share different ideas.”
Floyd Huggins said each convention she has attended has been different and that putting on something the scale of the convention takes a lot of work. While the experience is enjoyable, she said, it is also, at its core, a business trip comprised of meetings that start at breakfast and last until lights out.
McLawhorn said he expects young people to turn out and vote in November.
“To see the galvanization of all these young people, the excitement that its bringing to the table,” McLawhorn said. “I’m thrilled that the young people are galvanized and they’re ready to get out and help.
“This is a movement, believe it or not, and it reminds you of the movement of Martin Luther King Jr. when he was ... organizing the blacks and the poor whites and everybody to come together as one,” he said. “This is a movement and I see that happening not only in Pitt County but all over the world.”
Wilkins credited the hype surrounding this year’s convention to Harris being a frontrunner for the party’s ticket. When President Joe Biden announced he would not seek a second term in office, he endorsed Harris, which Wilkins said charged up the party. He and the other delegates praised Biden’s presidency, crediting him with stimulating the economy and standing for the Democratic priorities of health care and environmentalism.
“It just changed since Biden got out of the race,” Wilkins said. “More energy came into the party.
“You’ve got more people excited, because before, people were excited but they weren’t as motivated to vote as (they were) during the time that Obama ran. I feel that we’re getting some of the same energy from Obama’s presidency in the young people.”
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