“Joe Biden owes black people, and black women in particular, a debt of gratitude for reviving a campaign that was dead,” said Colette Phillips, founder of the Get Konnected social network and a supporter of the former vice president in the primary.

Black women in particular supported the former Delaware senator, leading to big wins in primaries across the South as rival candidates dropped out and coalesced around Biden.

To many African Americans, Biden’s vice presidential choice should reflect the Democratic Party’s most loyal base, a black woman who can inspire a strong turnout by voters of color in November and help replicate the coalition that twice elected Barack Obama to the White House.

“If Joe Biden thinks he can not choose a black woman and win, my name is Alexander Hamilton,” said the Rev. Miniard Culpepper, pastor of the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church and a primary supporter of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Massachusetts state Rep. Nika Elugardo of Jamaica Plain, who co-chaired the Sanders campaign in the Bay State, said Biden should find a woman of color from the heartland with strong ties to the labor movement and the experience of immigrants — drawing from the demographic foundation of the Democratic Party.