Delegates with the Uncommitted movement at the Democratic National Convention have continued pushing this week for either a Palestinian American or a doctor who has volunteered in Gaza to be allowed to speak on the main stage of the arena. There are thirty uncommitted delegates at the DNC representing the hundreds of thousands who voted uncommitted in lieu of supporting President Joe Biden’s primary campaign. They have been calling for a ceasefire and a halt to arms transfers to Israel while in Chicago. As we reported on August 1, the Uncommitted movement has also been continually requesting a speaker for the main stage. Last night, national Democrats denied their request for a speaker. Yesterday, ceasefire delegates began a sit-in to continue pushing for a brief speaking slot tonight. Those concerned about the war in Gaza have been able to hold an unprecedented panel on Palestinian human rights. And at a press conference on Tuesday organized by the Uncommitted movement, doctors told heartwrenching stories of what they’ve seen. But they have not been allowed to address the convention as a whole. On Wednesday evening, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg gave a moving speech from the main stage about their son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was taken hostage during Hamas’ attack on October 7. Uncommitted activists supported the decision to provide an opportunity for a hostage family to speak at the convention. But they believe it is also important for delegates and voters to hear from someone who can speak to the suffering in Gaza, where more than 40,000 people have been killed, according to the local health ministry. Mother Jones obtained the speech that Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American and Democrat, is still hoping to give. Romman has been a vocal and prominent activist for Uncommitted. Waleed Shahid, a strategist for the movement, said that she was among a list of potential speakers given to national Democrats. Initially, the Uncommitted movement pushed for Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor who volunteered in Gaza, to speak. (She is not Palestinian.) Shahid said this request was denied earlier in the week. After, the movement sent a list of more names for potential speakers, including Rep. Romman. (Shahid said he heard that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office was pushing for a speech from Romman.) In an interview, Romman called herself a safe, last resort. “If an elected official in a swing state who is Palestinian cannot make it on that stage nobody else can,” she told Mother Jones. Below, you can find the speech Romman wants to give. Uncommitted says it was open to multiple speakers. Rep. Romman and Uncommitted organizers both confirmed that this was the speech she was planning to give if allowed for a potential 2-minute speaking slot. Uncommitted said they were open to the speech being edited and vetted. They said the DNC did not ask to see the speech. “We prepped the speech,” Romman told Mother Jones. “We don’t know why the campaign said no. We literally have no feedback. We are in the dark.” The DNC did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication about why Romman—or another speaker—would not have been acceptable. “I want to be clear,” Romman said. “We’ve been in negotiations for days. This did not just come up…We’ve been talking about this for at least a week. In addition, the campaign told us that not getting a ‘no’ [initially upon first hearing the request] was a really good sign. For them to give us a ‘no’ the same day that Geoff Duncan [a Republican from Georgia] was on the stage—especially when it was my name—was just absolutely a slap in the face.”
Here is the text of Romman’s speech: My name is Ruwa Romman, and I’m honored to be the first Palestinian elected to public office in the great state of Georgia and the first Palestinian to ever speak at the Democratic National Convention. My story begins in a small village near Jerusalem, called Suba, where my dad’s family is from. My mom’s roots trace back to Al Khalil, or Hebron. My parents, born in Jordan, brought us to Georgia when I was eight, where I now live with my wonderful husband and our sweet pets. Growing up, my grandfather and I shared a special bond. He was my partner in mischief—whether it was sneaking me sweets from the bodega or slipping a $20 into my pocket with that familiar wink and smile. He was my rock, but he passed away a few years ago, never seeing Suba or any part of Palestine again. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him. This past year has been especially hard. As we’ve been moral witnesses to the massacres in Gaza, I’ve thought of him, wondering if this was the pain he knew too well. When we watched Palestinians displaced from one end of the Gaza Strip to the other I wanted to ask him how he found the strength to walk all those miles decades ago and leave everything behind. But in this pain, I’ve also witnessed something profound—a beautiful, multifaith, multiracial, and multigenerational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party. For 320 days, we’ve stood together, demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike to reach a ceasefire, end the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety. That’s why we are here—members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights and dignity for all. What we do here echoes around the world. They’ll say this is how it’s always been, that nothing can change. But remember Fannie Lou Hamer—shunned for her courage, yet she paved the way for an integrated Democratic Party. Her legacy lives on, and it’s her example we follow. But we can’t do it alone. This historic moment is full of promise, but only if we stand together. Our party’s greatest strength has always been our ability to unite. Some see that as a weakness, but it’s time we flex that strength. Let’s commit to each other, to electing Vice President Harris and defeating Donald Trump who uses my identity as a Palestinian as a slur. Let’s fight for the policies long overdue—from restoring access to abortions to ensuring a living wage, to demanding an end to reckless war and a ceasefire in Gaza. To those who doubt us, to the cynics and the naysayers, I say, yes we can—yes we can be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not for endless wars. That fights for an America that belongs to all of us—Black, brown, and white, Jews and Palestinians, all of us, like my grandfather taught me, together.
a little bit about Fannie Lou Hamer who the speech mentioned On August 31, 1962, Hamer and 17 others attempted to vote but failed a literacy test, which meant they were denied this right. On December 4, just after returning to her hometown, she went to the courthouse in Indianola to take the test again, but failed and was turned away. Hamer told the registrar, "You'll see me every 30 days till I pass". On January 10, 1963, she took the test a third time. She was successful and was informed that she was now a registered voter in Mississippi. But when she attempted to vote that fall, she discovered her registration gave her no actual power to vote as her county also required voters to have two poll tax receipts. This requirement had emerged in some (mostly former Confederate) states after the right to vote was first given to all races by the 1870 ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. These laws, along with the literacy tests and local government acts of coercion, were used against black people and Native Americans. Hamer later paid for and acquired the requisite poll tax receipts. As an example of how black citizens were disenfranchised in Mississippi, Hamer said that she "had never heard, until 1962, that black people could register and vote." Hamer began to become more involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee after these incidents. She attended many Southern Christian Leadership Conferences(SCLC), where she sometimes taught classes, and various SNCC (pronounced "Snick") workshops. She traveled to gather signatures for petitions to attempt to be granted federal resources for impoverished black families across the South. In early 1963, she became a SNCC field secretary for voter registration and welfare programs. Many of these first attempts to register more black voters in Mississippi were met with the same problems Hamer had found in trying to register herself.
After her attempt to vote, Hamer was fired by her boss, but her husband was required to stay on the land until the end of the harvest. Hamer moved between homes over the next several days for protection. On September 10, 1962, while staying with friend Mary Tucker, Hamer was shot at 15 times in a drive-by shooting by racists. No one was injured in the event. The next day Hamer and her family evacuated to nearby Tallahatchie County for three months, fearing retaliation by the Ku Klux Klan for her attempt to vote. I guess if I'd had any sense, I'd have been a little scared—but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember. On June 9, 1963, Hamer was returning from a voter registration workshop by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Charleston, South Carolina. Traveling by bus with co-activists, they stopped for a break in Winona, Mississippi. Some of the activists went inside a local cafe, but were refused service by the waitress. Shortly after, a Mississippi State highway patrolman took out his billy club and intimidated the activists into leaving. One of the group decided to take down the officer's license plate number; while doing so the patrolman and a police chief entered the cafe and arrested the party. Hamer left the bus and inquired if they could continue their journey back to Greenwood, Mississippi. At that point the officers arrested her as well. Once in county jail, Hamer's colleagues were beaten by the police in the booking room (including 15-year-old June Johnson, for not addressing officers as "sir"). Hamer was then taken to a cell where two inmates were ordered, by the state trooper, to beat her using a baton. The police ensured she was held down during the almost fatal beating, and when she started to scream, beat her further. Hamer was also groped repeatedly by officers during the assault. When she attempted to resist, she stated an officer, "walked over, took my dress, pulled it up over my shoulders, leaving my body exposed to five men". Another in her group was beaten until she was unable to talk; a third, a teenager, was beaten, stomped on, and stripped. An activist from SNCC came the next day to see if he could help but was beaten until his eyes were swollen shut when he did not address an officer in the expected deferential manner. Hamer was released on June 12, 1963. She needed more than a month to recuperate from the beatings and never fully recovered. Though the incident left profound physical and psychological effects, including a blood clot over her left eye and permanent damage on one of her kidneys, Hamer returned to Mississippi to organize voter registration drives, including the 1963 Freedom Ballot, a mock election, and the Freedom Summer initiative the following year.
today’s speakers I’m most interested in Harris, Kizinger, and the Tennessee Three…will also give Gallego, Whitmer, and Texas’ own Colin Allred a listen
I feel bad for Ruwa Romman and those wanting to speak but I understand why she won’t get to speak. 30 delegates is a minuscule number out of the thousands of delegates and Harris already clinched the nomination a Week before the convention. The uncommitted delegates have not power to alter the convention just to cause more division. Maybe that’s their point but this goes to an issue I always raise about protests. What is the end goal and does action bring you closer to that goal? No doubt most of the delegates already know about what is happening in Gaza. The Biden Admin has already put forward several cease fire plans with the current one looking promising. The problem is most of the country still supports Israel and an outright stance calling to punish or otherwise end support for Israel will be a losing issue in a very close race. The question then is if Harris loses and Trump is president does that make things better for the Palestinians? I think even those uncommitted delegates pressing for this would agree things will likely be worse. So the end result is your action rather than getting you closer to your goal of helping the Palestinians gets you further away.
these Uncommitted people are trying to use what minuscule amount of leverage they think they might have to pressure the Dems, but they’re getting annoying atp they’re like the Bernie Bros in 2016
"And in that space between us, politicians and algorithms teach us to caricature each other and troll each other and fear each other." - Barack Obama
Now that’s amazing. Just another one of the examples that shows utterly how awful of a human being Trump is.
the comments from Courtney Baldwin, the brave sex trafficking survivor, in support of Kamala Harris were powerful…wow
