‘Choose democracy, not political violence’: Rep. Bennie Thompson talks Jan. 6 during primetime speech at DNC

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson took the stage on night three of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday night to urge Americans to cast their November presidential vote for Kamala Harris.

Thompson, Mississippi’s longest serving member of Congress and the state’s only Democratic delegate in Washington, led the congressional special committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol.

READ MORE: ‘An attempted coup’: Rep. Bennie Thompson tells the world what happened on Jan. 6, 2021

Touching on his time as chairman of the Jan. 6 committee and also as a longtime champion of civil rights in Mississippi, Thompson issued a direct plea to voters ahead of the November presidential election.

“In this country, we settle our differences at the ballot box, not through violence,” Thompson said during his DNC speech. “It took a long time to get here, and we’re not going back. I remember that dark history. It’s my own history. In this life, my father never cast a vote because of Jim Crow, so I dedicated my career to protecting the vote against violence and discrimination.”

WATCH: Congressman Bennie Thompson’s full speech at the DNC

Thompson continued: “You can imagine what I felt on Jan. 6, when I saw with my own eyes those insurrectionists trying to take that away. They did it to rob millions of Americans of their votes. They did it because Donald Trump couldn’t handle losing. He lied about the election fraud, he called his conspiracy-led mob to Washington. He would rather subvert democracy than submit to it. Now, he’s plotting again … elections are about choice. Choose democracy, not political violence. Choose the America we always taught our children to love. Choose Kamala Harris.”

Thompson was the only Mississippi official to take the stage during primetime of either the Democratic National Convention or the Republican National Convention in July, though U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, a Democrat representing California who spoke at the DNC on Tuesday night, is a native of Magnolia in Pike County.