Hours after their historic win, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris made their victory speeches from the Chase Center in Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware on Saturday night (November 7).

Madam Vice President-elect — the first woman and the first Black and South Asian American to win the vice president position — addressed the nation first, walking on stage to the song "Work That" by Mary J. Blige before beginning her speech with a quote from late Congressman John Lewis.

“Democracy is not a state. It is an act," Harris, wearing suffragette white, recited before explaining the meaning of the quote, which Lewis wrote before his passing. "What [Congressman Lewis] meant was that America’s democracy is not guaranteed. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it; to guard it—and that’s exactly what you did," she told the Nation. “And when our very democracy was on the ballot in this election — with the very soul of America at stake and the world watching — you ushered in a new day for America."

Harris went on to thank those who made the Biden-Harris win possible, saying, "To our campaign staff and volunteers, thank you for bringing more people than ever before into the democratic process. To all the poll workers and election officials, our nation owes you a debt of gratitude. And to the American people: thank you for making your voices heard."

She also paid tribute to the women of color who “have paved the way for this moment tonight — women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality, liberty and justice for all, including the Black women who are often — too often overlooked but so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy."

The daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, Harris additionally thanked her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. “When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn't quite imagine this moment," Harris said of her mother, an Indian immigrant. "But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible, and so I am thinking about her and about the generations of women, Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women, who throughout our nation’s history, who paved the way to tonight, women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all. [...] While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last. Every little girl that’s watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”

"For four years, you marched and organized for equality and justice, for our lives, and for our planet," Harris continued. "And then, you voted. You voted for hope, unity, decency, science, and truth when you chose Joe Biden as the next President of the United States of America."

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