Sen. Elizabeth Warren with presidential forum moderators Joy Reid of MSNBC (left) and Aimee Allison, She the People founder.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren had just been asked in front of a live Houston, Texas, audience—predominately women of color—why they should trust that a female candidate can prevail in 2020 after the pitfalls of Hillary Clinton's 2016 bid. Sen. Warren turned her head to the audience at the inaugural She the People presidential forum and threw some playful shade at them, glaring just over the brim of her glasses to disapproving schoolmarm affect. "I think that's called side-eye," jested She the People president and forum co-moderator Aimee Allison. Then Warren inched forward in her chair to engage, sat upright, and leaned in heavy on the discomfort many women still feel after being burned by the divisive gender politics of 2016.

"This is the heart of it," she began, tapping her hand to her chest, "it's, how are we going to fight? Not just individually, but how are we going to fight together? Are we going to fight because we're afraid?" she posed, challenging the women in the room to confront their own fears. "That's not who we are. That's not how we're going to do this."

"Here's how I see this," she continued, prompting an audience member to call out, "Tell us how you see it!"

"I'll tell you how I see it," Warren responded with a chuckle, literally pushing up the slightly rolled sleeves of her Kelly-green blazer to get down to business.

"We got a room full of people here, who weren't given anything. We got a room full of people here who had to fight for what they believe in. We have a room full of people here, who had to reach down deep, and no matter how hard it was, no matter how scary it looked, they found what they needed to find and they brought it up and they took care of the people they love," Warren said, lifting her hand from a downward-pointed forefinger summoning the depths of one's soul to the clenched fist of resolve. "They fought the fights they believe in—that's how they got into these seats today."

It was raw motion rooted in a story she then shared with the audience about the moment when her mom taught her that, when the chips are down, somehow you always find a way to go to battle for the ones you love. She was in middle school and her father, the sole breadwinner, was gravely ill. In the dark hours of the night, she would learn terms like "mortgage" and "foreclosure" as she listened to her parents talk about losing the family home. Then one day, she went into her parents' bedroom where her mother, crying and pacing, was moving her eyes between her little girl and the bed where she had laid out her finest dress, muttering all the while, "We will not lose this house. We will not lose this house." At 50, her mother had never worked outside the home, Warren said, but she finally blew her nose, slipped on her dress, and went out to land a minimum-wage job answering phones at Sears that put food on the table, saved their home, and saved their family.