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Everyone remembers where they were when former President Barack Obama was elected to serve as America’s 44th president. Fast-forward nearly 16 years, and the country is hopeful to make history again with presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
As the queen of breaking barriers, making history might be second nature for Harris. In 2021, she became the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected into office as the nation’s current Madame Vice President.
During Night 3 of the highly anticipated 2024 Democratic National Convention, hosted by Scandal actress Kerry Washington, the VP is back at it again, accepting the nomination to represent the Democratic Party in the upcoming November election. Moments before she hit the stage, Harris’ younger sister, Maya Harris, took a moment to share with a packed United Center in Chicago why her sibling is more than qualified to become the nation’s next president.
She also used the moment to honor their late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a biomedical scientist who came to America in 1958 as a graduate student on a mission to find a cure for breast cancer.
“Mommy was so many things to so many people,” said Maya as she took the stage just moments before her big sister. “A civil rights activist, a scientist, a devoted mother to her two little girls, but most of all, Mommy was a trailblazer who defied the odds and defined herself, and when it came to Kamala and me, Mommy had great expectations for us, but she had even greater expectations of us. She raised us to believe that we could be and do anything, and we believed her. She knew we could be the authors of our own stories, just as she’d been the author of her own journey and the opportunity that she wanted for Kamala and me; that’s a distinctly American story.”
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As Vice President Harris graced the stage, she also took a moment to highlight their mother’s legacy, sharing how her American dream led Harris to the very moment that she is in now… the journey to the Oval Office as she’s been quite acclimated with the White House for the past four years.
“She taught us to never complain about injustice, but to do something about it,” Harris said of her mother. “She also taught us to never do anything half-ass.”
Additionally, Harris recalled the defining moment in her childhood that led her to dreams of becoming a prosecutor, which she not achieved, but surpassed when she was elected Attorney General of California in 2010 and was sworn into the United States Senate in 2017.
“When I was in high school, I started to notice something about my best friend, Wanda,” Harris recalled with Wanda in the crowd at the historic event. “She was sad at school, and there were times she didn’t want to go home, so one day, I asked if everything was all right, and she confided in me that she was being sexually abused by her stepfather. I immediately told her she had to come stay with us, and she did. This is one of the reasons I became a prosecutor to protect people like Wanda, because I believe everyone has a right to safety, to dignity and to justice.
Now that she has officially accepted the nomination to become the nation’s 47th president, Vice President Harris is the first HBCU graduate, by way of Howard University, and the Divine Nine member, thanks to her lifelong sisterhood through Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc. to be on the journey to the presidency, and should she be elected in November, we may not hear the last of it (and we’re definitely not mad at it).
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“I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads and listens… who is realistic, practical, and has common sense and always fights for the American people,” she continued during her address at the DNC. “From the courthouse to the White House has been my life’s work.”
“As a young courtroom prosecutor in Oakland, California I stood up for women and children against creditors who abused them. As Attorney General of California, I took on the big banks, delivered $20 billion for middle-class families who faced foreclosure, and helped pass the homeowner bill of rights, one of the first of its kind in the nation… I fought against the cartels who traffic in guns and drugs and human beings who threaten the security of our border and the safety of our communities. And I will tell you, these fights were not easy, and neither were the elections that put me in those offices. We were underestimated at practically every turn, but we never gave up, because the future is always worth fighting for and that’s the fight we are in right now, a fight for America’s future.”
As hungry future voters, members of various political parties, and host of others eagerly cheered on Vice President Harris during her nomination acceptance speech, along with her family, her sister and nieces, and bonus children cheered her on from the beginning to the end. Prior to exiting the stage she was joined by her husband Doug Emhoff, whom she acknowledged and revealed they are celebrating 10 years of marriage today.
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“We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world and on behalf of our children and our grandchildren and all those who sacrificed so dearly for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of this moment,” said Harris. “It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done, guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth, the privilege and pride of being an American.”
“So let’s get out there,” she concluded. “Let’s fight for it. Let’s get out there. Let’s vote for it, and together, let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.”
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