By Kayleigh Hendricks ‘23
Kamala Harris has served as a senator in the state of California, District Attorney of San Francisco, and a prosecutor. Harris will now serve as the Vice President of the United States of America. Harris, the daughter of two immigrant parents from India and Jamaica, is the first woman and woman of color to ever be elected to this position.
“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” declared Harris in her first speech as vice president-elect.
There have only been two other women in history to run as vice presidential nominees for a major party. In 2008, Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, was selected as republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate. In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro, a democratic congresswoman, made history alongside Walter Mondale as his running mate.
“To the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourselves in a way that others may not, simply because they’ve never seen it before,” Harris stated.
Harris was always taught that the road to racial justice is very long.
“I’m thinking about her [Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris] and about the generations of women — Black women, Asian, White, Latina and Native American women — throughout our nation’s history who have paved the way for this moment tonight,” she said. “Women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality, liberty and justice for all, including the Black women, who are too often overlooked, but so often prove that they are the backbone of our democracy.”
Harris is set to take office on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.