🎙️'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' Black History Series Kamala Devi Harris (1964– ): A Record of Firsts That Redefined American Power

From Oakland to the Oval Office’s second-in-command, Vice President Kamala Devi Harris has reshaped the nation’s political map—breaking barriers across race, gender, and governance.

On November 3, 2020, Kamala Devi Harris made history when she was elected Vice President of the United States alongside President Joe Biden. Sworn in on January 20, 2021, Harris became the nation’s 49th vice president—the first Black woman, the first woman, and the first American of South Asian descent to hold the office.

The moment capped a career defined by “firsts.” In 2016, Harris won election to the U.S. Senate from California, becoming the first Black woman to represent the state and only the second African American woman ever elected to the chamber, following Carol Moseley-Braun. Before Washington, Harris had already carved out unprecedented territory as California’s attorney general and as San Francisco’s district attorney—again, the first woman of African American and South Asian heritage to hold each post.

Born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, Harris is the daughter of Donald J. Harris, a Jamaican-born Stanford economist, and Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a breast cancer researcher who emigrated from Chennai, India. Her childhood spanned continents and cultures, including formative years in Montreal, where her mother worked at McGill University Hospital—an upbringing that shaped Harris’s global outlook and personal narrative.

That perspective followed her to Howard University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1986 and joined Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Encouraged by civil rights icons to pursue a legal career, Harris went on to earn her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law (now UC Law San Francisco) and was admitted to the California Bar in 1990.

Harris began her legal career as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, prosecuting violent felonies before rising through San Francisco’s legal ranks. Elected district attorney in 2003, she established the city’s Environmental Justice Unit and focused on accountability for pollution and public safety. As California attorney general, Harris confronted the state’s foreclosure crisis head-on—helping secure billions in homeowner relief through the National Mortgage Settlement and championing the California Homeowner Bill of Rights.

Her 2009 book, Smart on Crime, outlined a pragmatic vision for public safety that balanced enforcement with prevention—an approach that would later inform her national profile. After a successful Senate run and a brief but influential 2020 presidential campaign, Harris again broke barriers when she became the first Black woman nominated for vice president by a major political party.

Today, Harris continues to navigate a role that is both historic and evolving—representing the United States abroad, casting tie-breaking votes in a closely divided Senate, and serving as a visible symbol of a changing America. Married to Los Angeles attorney Douglas Emhoff, the first Second Gentleman, Harris’s personal and professional story remains inseparable from the broader arc of American democracy.

In the 🎙️'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' Black History Series, Kamala Devi Harris stands not only as a milestone—but as a marker of how far the nation has come, and how its future continues to be rewritten.

This Black History article is sponsored by Ford Motor Company.

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-- By Jasmine Thomas

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