Harris to Buffalo mourners: Hate, fear won’t separate us
Mourners laid to rest the last of 10 Black people killed in a racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket with a service Saturday that became a call to action and an emotional plea to end the hate and violence that has wracked the nation.
The funeral for 86-yearold Ruth Whitfield — the oldest of the 10 people killed in the attack two weeks ago — included an impromptu speech by Vice President Kamala Harris, who attended the service at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Buffalo with second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Harris told the mourners this is a moment in time for “all good people” to stand up to the injustice that happened at the Tops Friendly Market on May 14, as well as at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and in other mass shootings.
“This is a moment that requires all good people, all God-loving people to stand up and say we will not stand for this. Enough is enough,” said Harris, who wasn’t scheduled to speak and came to the microphone at the urging of the Rev. Al Sharpton. “We will come together based on what we all know we have in common, and we will not let those people who are motivated by hate separate us or make us feel fear.”
Following the funeral, Harris and Emhoff visited a memorial outside the supermarket. The vice president left a large bouquet of white flowers, and the pair paused to pray for several minutes.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden had placed flowers at the same memorial on May 17 and had visited with the victims’ families. Biden was expected to head to Texas for a visit this weekend with the families of victim’s of Tuesday’s school shooting.
Harris later told reporters that the administration is not “sitting around waiting to figure out what the solution looks like” to the nation’s gun violence problem.
“We know what works on that,” she said, reiterating support for background checks and a ban on assault weapons.
“Let’s have an assault weapons ban,” she said. “An assault weapon is a weapon of war with no place, no place in civil society. Background checks: Why should anyone be able to buy a weapon that can kill other human beings without at least knowing: Hey, that person committed a violent
crime before, are they a threat against themselves or others?”
Harris said the nation has to come together, as well.
“We have to agree that if we are to be strong as a nation, we must stand strong, identifying our diversity as our unity,” she said.
It’s been a sad week of goodbyes for family and friends of the Buffalo shooting victims, a group that includes a restaurant worker who went to the market to buy his 3-year-old’s birthday cake; a father and diehard Buffalo Bills fan who worked as a school bus aide; and a 32-year-old sister who moved to the city to help a brother battling leukemia.
Whitfield, a grandmother and mother of four, had been inside the supermarket after visiting her husband of 68 years in a nursing home when a gunman identified by police as 18-year-old Payton Gendron began the deadly onslaught.