After experiencing the controversial presidency of Donald Trump for more than two years, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris said she was ready to speak a little truth to a crowd of thousands in Detroit Sunday night.

Speaking at the NAACP’s 64th annual Fight for Freedom Fund dinner at Cobo Center, the California Democrat and candidate for president, said, “This is a moment in time where we need to speak truth. Take for example, the United States attorney general who lied to Congress and lied to you, and is clearly more interested in representing the president than the American people. We need leaders who have the courage to speak truth.”

It’s a moment that the Democratic presidential candidate from California returned to repeatedly during her speech. “Let’s speak a truth,” she said repeatedly and tied it to a policy she intends to implement if she’s elected president, including:

A tax cut for the middle class and working-class Americans who can’t afford to pay for an unexpected expense. Families making less than $100,000 a year, would receive $6,000 that they could access at up to $500 a month. She will pay for it by repealing Trump’s tax cut that benefited the wealthy and corporations;

A new voting rights act that would automatically register people to vote; make election day a national holiday and fight back against Republican efforts to suppress the vote;

Give Congress 100 days to enact gun control — expand background checks, take licenses away from gun dealers who break the law, stop domestic abusers from getting guns — or she will sign an executive order to accomplish her goals on guns

Implement Medicare for all, so that all people, especially African Americans, who are the fasting growing group of uninsured in America, have access to affordable health care;

Increase criminal justice investigations into law enforcement patterns and practices and enforce current and future consent decrees with city police departments and end the cash bail system that hits poor and minority communities especially hard.

She also addressed some of the concerns that have been expressed about her candidacy, including her tough-on-crime reputation as a district attorney in San Francisco and as California's attorney general. It was a decision that even had her family wondering about her choice of career.

But it was a decision to help keep people safe and fix a broken criminal justice system from the inside, she said.

“Knowing the system is in need of reform, let’s have people on the inside prepared to use their power to open doors and prepared to implement the agenda to make the system more fair and just,” she said.

And as far as the “electability” conundrum facing Democratic politicians, especially women after Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, Harris said, the narrative is short-sighted and sells voters short.

“Who can speak to the Midwest,” she said. “Too often, the definition of the Midwest leaves people out. It leaves people in this room who helped build cities like Detroit. It leaves out working women who are on their feet all day.”

She attacked Trump throughout her speech, saying America needs a president who will not denigrate countries, sympathize with neo-Nazi's and repeatedly attack communities of color.

"This president isn’t trying to make America great, he’s trying to make America hate. So it is critical to our security, our dignity, and our unity as a nation when I say: we need a new president," Harris said. "It’s time we had a president who brings people together rather than rip them apart ... I will be that president."

Harris in January was one of the first candidates to announce her candidacy. She’s one of 20 Democratic candidates for president, including six women.

She has raised $15.4 million for her presidential campaign, including more than $36,000 from Michigan donors.

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She has gained fame for her tough and pointed questioning of Trump’s cabinet appointees, most recently U.S. Attorney General William Barr during his five hours of testimony last week on the Mueller report before the Senate Judiciary Committee. After his testimony, Harris said that Barr should resign.

The NAACP's 64th annual Freedom Fund dinner is one of the biggest catered events in the nation, attracting thousands of people and traditionally attracting the biggest names in politics and civil rights to the podium.

Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have both spoken at the dinner — Obama when he was a senator from Illinois in 2005 and Clinton when he was president in 2000. The last four speakers — former Vice President Joe Biden, former first lady and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey — have or are running for president.

The NAACP doesn't endorse candidates, said the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the organization's Detroit chapter. "We've invited a whole lot of folk over the past. We have a blessing and a burden this year. We have so many good people running and the burden is that there can only be one."

And Anthony said that one candidate has to be good enough to beat Trump, who he described as "spiritual wickedness in high places."

“What’s riding on the election is our lives and our freedom. We’ve got people who want to stop the press, people who don’t respect the law, an attorney general who lies, a president who lies,” he said. “This is about the soul of America.”

Harris' appearance in Detroit strengthens Michigan's role as a key state for presidential candidates in the 2020 election cycle. Trump won Michigan by a slim 10,704-vote margin over Clinton in 2016, the first time a Republican won the presidential race in Michigan since 1988.

Democrats have vowed that won't happen again in 2020 and the party's candidates have been flooding into Michigan in recent weeks. Other Democrats who have campaigned in Michigan this year include: former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas; U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Bernie Sanders of Vermont; U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio; and New York businessman Andrew Yang.

On Monday, Harris will stay in Michigan and campaign at a school in Dearborn and attend a town hall with education officials in Detroit to tout her proposals for education.

She has called for a $300 billion plan over 10 years to raise teacher pay by an average $13,500 per teacher.

Also feted by most speakers at the dinner was U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Damon Keith, a civil rights icon in Detroit who died last week at the age of 96.

Mayor Mike Duggan noted that the city was in for days of sadness as Keith is remembered at memorial services over the next week.

"He was an equal combination of tenacity and grace," Duggan said. "He changed America for the better."

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal.