Nancy Pelosi, Robin Kelly and TV Stars Get DNC Women’s Caucus Fired Up: ‘Now is the Time to Feel Your Power’

 U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-California) speaks at a meeting of the Women’s Caucus on Aug. 22, 2024. (Nick Blumberg / WTTW News) U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-California) speaks at a meeting of the Women’s Caucus on Aug. 22, 2024. (Nick Blumberg / WTTW News)

U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has been hailed as a party legend at Democratic National Convention guests all week — but even her star power was outshone at a meeting of the Women’s Caucus on Thursday morning when actor and singer Sheryl Lee Ralph took the stage.

Leading the crowd in a sing-along of “we’re not going back,” Ralph displayed none of the hoarseness of voice endemic to many of the politicians being run somewhat ragged after a long week of events.

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Ralph, a breakout star of the hit ABC show “Abbott Elementary”, told the crowd that “now is the time to feel your power.”

“I don’t need to tell you what to do,” Ralph told the rapturous crowd. “You are the choir; you know the notes in every song; get out there and sing it!”

Pelosi had a similar message of motivation for the crowd, saying this campaign has to abide by her “three nos – no wasted time, no underutilized resources, and no regrets the day after that election that we could have done just a little more.”

The event kicked off with U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Illinois), the former chair of the Illinois Democratic Party. Kelly apologized for her raspy voice – and for missing the memo on matching the sartorial theme of suffragette white dozens of people in the room wore. She rallied the crowd around Democrats’ efforts to take back the House and make “my little brother,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the House Speaker.

“We need to work to win, and as our forever First Lady – I represent Illinois – said, we gotta do something,” Kelly said.

Kelly’s former House colleague, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge and current co-chair of the Harris-Walz campaign, quoted the Bible verse that for everything there is a time: “sisters, it is our time.”

U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who had a DNC speaking slot earlier this week, made clear what she thinks of her Republican House colleagues, saying the Congress “looks like a kangaroo court.”

And another starry attendee, “Orange Is the New Black” star Uzo Aduba, echoed the themes of light and joy speakers throughout the week have been employing as a contrast to what they say is the dark vision of Donald Trump.

“For the next 75 days,” she told the crowd, “we must be the light that drives that darkness out.”


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