For the first time ever in the US history, a woman is the Vice President and she is BLACK!. Now the “blackness” of kamala Harris is not up for debate at this point, bottom line is; she is black with roots in Jamaica( her father is Jamaican).
With the Democratic candidate for the White House, Joe Biden emerging as president elect with currently 290 electoral votes; Kamala Harris, his running mate is now the first female Vice President elect.
The California senator, For two decades in public life, Harris has achieved a lot of firsts; the first Black woman to serve as San Francisco’s district attorney; the first woman to be California’s attorney general, first Indian American senator, and now she will be working by Biden’s side; after he named her for the nomination to the number two spot in August amid cheers from supporters including women activists.
Here’s what you should know about the prosecutor-turned-senator whose motto comes from her mom; “You may be the first, but make sure you’re not the last.”
A little History Of Kamala Harris
Harris was born in Oakland, California on October 20, 1964, to Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher from India; and Donald Harris, an economist from Jamaica. Her parents met at UC Berkley while pursuing graduate degrees and the two were active in the civil rights movement right from their days on campus. When Kamala was born, they often took her along to protests in a stroller.
The eldest of two children, Harris grew up embracing both her Black and South Asian identities; and one time visited India while young, where it is documented that she; “was heavily influenced by her grandfather, a high-ranking government official who fought for Indian independence; and grandmother, an activist who traveled the countryside teaching impoverished women about birth control.”
Attending middle school and high school in Montreal, Kamala studied political science and economics (B.A., 1986) at Howard University, and then earned a law degree in 1989 from Hastings College.
She subsequently worked as a deputy district attorney from 1990–98 in Oakland, prosecuting cases of drug trafficking, gang violence, and sexual abuse. Despite her parents not being too comfortable with her career choice, Kamala said she wanted to change the system from the inside; and with that determination, she moved up the ladder, becoming a district attorney in 2004.
For Kamala; “This election is about so much more than @JoeBiden or me,” 56-year-old Harris, the daughter of immigrants, said on Twitter shortly after Biden was projected as the winner. “It’s about the soul of America and our willingness to fight for it. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Let’s get started.”