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Kamala Harris

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Kamala Harris
Flickr / <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/48004684232">Gage Skidmore</a>

Kamala Devi Harris widely known as Kamala Harris, is an American lawyer, author, and politician that has been representing California in the United States Senate since 2017. Kamala was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California to a Jamaican father, who was a professor at Stanford University and an Indian mother, who was a cancer researcher.

Her parents met at UC Berkeley while they were both pursuing graduate degrees and they also shared a passion for the civil rights movement and would often take Kamala to protests in her stroller – Kamala Harris first exposure to the civil rights movement.

Kamala was also influenced by her maternal grandparents while visiting India throughout her childhood. Her grandmother was an activist and her grandfather was a high-ranking government official who fought for Indian independence.

In 1986, Kamala earned a B.A. in political science and economics from Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, DC. In 1989, she earned a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

The following year, Kamala Harris became a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, focusing on prosecuting sex crimes. In 1998, she joined the Career Criminal Unit of the District Attorney’s Office in San Francisco and in 2000 she became Chief of the Community and Neighborhood Division.

Kamala was elected district attorney of San Francisco from 2004-2011, and attorney general of California from 2011-2016. In 2019, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, she announced that she was running for president. On August 11, 2020, she has been nominated for vice president as Joe Biden’s running mate. We know that whatever Kamala Harris sets her mind to, she can accomplish.

Kamala Harris Black Moments:

  • First African American woman to be nominated for vice president
  • California’s first African American Senator
  • Served as first African American and first woman district attorney of San Francisco
  • Served as first African American and first woman attorney general of California
  • Recognized as California’s top prosecutors
  • Named “Attorney of the Year” and “100 Most Influential Black Americans”
  • Recipient of Thurgood Marshall Award
  • Established California’s first Bureau of Children’s Justice

Related Black Moment: John Lewis

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