Former Vice President Joe Biden Announces Candidacy ...2 of 6 >
May 18, 2019 - The program gets underway.
Rev. Bonnie Camarda, President of Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia delivers the invocation.
Sixth grader Sydney Johnson leads the Pledge of Allegiance.
Carmella Green performs the National Anthem.
The Triumph Baptist Church Choir performed Lift Every Voice and Sing, Amazing Grace and What's Goin' On.
CASSY INGERSOLL: Hi everyone; I'm Cassy Ingersoll.  I just finished my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania.  At Penn I'm a founding member of Penn Students for Biden.

My brother and I are the first generation in our family to go to college.  I'm from Phoenix, Arizona and my dad and his family have lived in Arizona for three generations, but my mom is from Juarez and a first generation immigrant.  Most of my mom's family is still in Mexico.

Vice President Biden believes in equal opportunity for all regardless of their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disability.

He believes in treating everyone with dignity and that  the diversity of our country makes it stronger.

Joe Biden stood shoulder to shoulder with President Obama to pass the Affordable Care Act, protecting millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions and expanding health care to over 20 million Americans.

At Penn, I'm a pre-med and study health policy.  Joe Biden, like me, believes that access to high quality, affordable health care should be a right and not a privilege

Joe Biden fights for all of us and now he needs our help fighting for him in this election.  It's going to take all of us, a real grassroots effort and hard work to get Joe Biden elected.  It's going to take all of us having real conversations, knocking on doors, making calls, sharing our stories and doing the work.

There's a primary on Tuesday for your local elections here in Philadelphia.  Make sure that you get out there and vote.  There are great candidates up and down the ballot who are going to fight for us here locally.

You've taken your first action by coming here today but we need you to keep going until we win this thing in November of 2020.  So if you're with us to the end, pull out your phone and text UNITED to 30330 so that we know you're with us.  Text UNITED to 30330 to tell us that you are ready for the fight.

Now, let's go out and win this thing.

VIDEO NARRATED BY JILL BIDEN: It was in Philadelphia in 1787 that the very first words of the United States Constitution were written: We the People.  We, We the People.  It was a statement of unity, of common purpose, of coming together.  We bound ourselves together as one people, one nation, one America, and from that improbable moment this rag-tag nation that had dared to break from the most powerful empire on the face of the Earth embarked on a journey to become the greatest nation this planet has ever seen.

But today, we see so much division, so much anger.  Our politics has become so petty, so personal, so negative.  It's as if we can't govern ourselves or even talk to one another.  We need to return to what brought the Founders to Philadelphia, to become again what Lincoln called the last, best hope of [inaud.].  That's why Joe is running.  It's why we're going to Philadelphia.  It's what this campaign is all about. [inaud.] ...hear one another, listen to one another, work with one another, respect one another, to unite, to come together, to once again be one America.  We are the United States of America.
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