(Re)introducing Kamala Harris

The vice president is largely unknown to most of us

Credit: Getty Images

If you want to learn about Kamala Harris, it helps to have some historical perspective. Sixty years ago this month, in the summer of 1964, our nation was still reeling from the assassination of a young president. John F. Kennedy had talked of wanting to pass civil rights legislation, but it was his successor, Lyndon Johnson, who made it happen in the wake of Kennedy’s death. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which passed Congress and was signed into law in July of that year, banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin.

But the new law did not immediately bring equality or peace to America. I vividly remember witnessing that summer, which was the beginning of “civil unrest” across the nation but in reality was much worse. A cycle of violence ensued: Black Americans protesting inequality and unfair treatment by the police, the police being attacked and then retaliating. The summer of ‘64 was also known as “freedom summer,” reflecting a movement to register Black voters in the South. This effort, too, was met with violence, especially from the Ku Klux Klan.

It was into the chaos and change of 1964 that Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California. Her Jamaican father, a Stanford economics professor, and Indian mother, a world-renowned scientist at Berkeley, did not shy away from political activism. Harris was bussed across town to an all-white elementary school. Her parents took her to civil rights protests throughout her childhood.

Harris grew up in this dichotomy, where she was encouraged to stand up and be heard while many were trying to silence her voice. It is from this history that Kamala Harris’s ethos was born: a belief that she had a responsibility to enact change. She has spent her career trying to do that, as a district attorney, state attorney general, senator, and vice president.

Harris is no stranger to America’s struggles with race. Those problems have pushed her to look forward. Yesterday, at her first campaign appearance as the presumptive nominee, her campaign theme was “we’re not going back,” a pointed and intentional contrast to “make America great again.”

Harris is a tough nut to crack, considering how long she has been in public life. She is a lawyer and prosecutor by trade and tends to keep things close to the vest. Her biographer says she has been underestimated because so few truly know her, even in the White House. 

He shares a telling story about her childhood. When Harris was a young girl, a friend of hers was being abused by her stepfather. Harris told her mother, who took the girl in and got her help. Harris has said that this was a formative experience in her life and drove her to become a prosecutor. The story wasn’t a secret, nor did she shout it from the rooftops. Three years into the Biden administration, her colleagues there were surprised to hear of the story, which one could argue is a great narrative for a campaign, a great way to showcase a vice presidential candidate.

Perhaps Harris’s air of mystery is helping, at least for now. She has raised an astonishing amount of money since Joe Biden dropped out of the race: $126 million as of this writing. At the very least, she has energized an electorate desperate for something shiny and new. 

America has made progress toward racial justice over these many decades, but the expected nomination of Kamala Harris has brought to the fore an ugly undercurrent that celebrates and normalizes hate. Despite her extensive credentials, Harris has been called the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) candidate by sitting members of Congress. She has been maligned by the future Republican vice presidential nominee, among others, for choosing not to have children. A 2020 study that tracked more than 335,000 instances of misogynistic attacks against 13 women running for office found that 78% of them were aimed at Harris. Trump has called her crazy and unfit and ridicules her laugh.

The differences between the two candidates could not be more stark. Donald Trump wants to go back to what he considers a better time. He has not convinced me of when that might have been. Kamala Harris says she wants to look forward and forge a new future. The question is, will that theme and her personal history win in November?

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