By Marcia Morgado

More Perfect Union was the theme of the Democratic National Convention Night 3. The program included several prominent women and one of the most influential politicians of the century: former president Barack Obama. The emcee for the night was actor/producer/activist Kerry Washington.

Washington is perhaps best known for the role of Olivia Pope on Scandal. She was a speaker at the 2012 DNC, and she is an active supporter of the LGBTQ community and the BLM movement.

Her opening remarks referred to the first 15 words of the Constitution. She expounded: “When our Constitution was written, women couldn’t vote. Black people were considered three-fifths of a human being, but therein lies the work. No one is perfect. Nothing is. But it is the striving towards justice, equality, and truth that distinguishes us. We fight for a more perfect union because we are fighting for the soul of this country and for the fight of our lives.” That set the tone for the night. 

Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords conveyed true grit as she related how, when faced with paralysis and aphasia, she refused to give up and found the strength to continue one step at a time, feeling stronger day by day. She prompted us to “speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words,” by the simple act of voting. 

Like Secretary Hillary Clinton and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Giffords chose to wear white in honor of women’s suffrage on the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment. 

In her typical toned-down manner, Clinton offered a sobering reminder for those who think we’ve seen the worse that from our stand worldwide to mail delivery: “If Trump is re-elected, it will get even worse. My friends, we need unity now more than ever.”

Pelosi, who wears power with a smile listed the steps to follow: “Our mission and our pledge are to fight for a future equal to the ideals of our founders, our hopes for our children, and the sacrifices of our veterans, our brave men and women in uniform—and their families. We will increase our majority in the House; we will win a Democratic Senate; we will elect Kamala Harris, vice president and Joe Biden, president of the United States of America.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren chose to film at the Early Childhood Education Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. She used alphabet blocks to spell BLM: the acronym can be seen just below her left shoulder in the shot. Warren reminded us that “childcare is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation—it’s infrastructure for families.” By electing Biden and Harris, Warren concluded, affordable and quality childcare would be available and universal preschool. And raise wages for child care workers. A recurrent theme through the night was that when our children and grandchildren ask what did we do, we would be able to say, without hesitation: “We organized, we persisted, and we changed America.” This idea came back time and time again.

It’s a measure of the state of the Nation when the always composed, matter-of-fact, mild-mannered professorial style that we’ve come to expect from President Barack Obama appeared altered, with a somber air that at times it seemed he was close to tearing up. He is uniquely qualified to convey the earnest behavior expected from the chosen few at the land’s highest office. Thus his disappointment in witnessing that Trump has never taken it seriously: “For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”

He urged us to participate in recovering our Nation because if “Our ancestors,” those who before us endured rejection, humiliation, abuse, and torture didn’t give up, how could we? He tapped into the inspiring actions of the younger generations during months of protest against racial inequality. “You can give our democracy new meaning. You can take it to a better place. You’re the missing ingredient—the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed.” Although the work will continue after the election, we need to do what is required because “any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election.”

Senator Kamala Harris accepted the nomination for vice president and introduced herself to the audience in a warm, relaxed manner. Nonetheless, after giving us a glimpse of her life and her family she concluded by posing the same question we heard earlier: “Years from now, this moment will have passed. And our children and grandchildren will look in our eyes and ask us: where were you when the stakes were so high? They will ask us, what was it like? And we will tell them. We will tell them not just how we felt. We will tell them what we did.”

We voted. We voted to save our democracy. We voted to build back better.