The many identities of the first woman vice-president
- Published
It took less than an hour after Joe Biden's decision to step aside for Democrats to begin to rally around Kamala Harris as their party's new 2024 presidential nominee.
As the US vice-president aspires to be the first woman to hold the country's top job, her campaign is re-energising liberal voters and has raised a record $671m (£514m) in donations over the past two months - nearly triple what her Republican rival Donald Trump has managed.
But her journey to the top of the ticket has been unique, fraught, and full of difficult questions. Here is a look at Ms Harris' career, the events that have shaped her life, and how she became the first black female presidential nominee.
How Kamala rose to become VP
Ms Harris first threw her hat into the ring for president five years ago.
She began her career as the district attorney - or top prosecutor - for Alameda County and, from 2004 to 2011, for the city of San Francisco.
Her next promotion was as California's attorney general, becoming the first woman and first black person elected to serve as the top lawyer in America's most populous state.
She used that momentum to propel her successful 2016 run as California's next US senator, a perch from which she drew buzz with her prosecutorial style in committee hearings.
But a 2020 presidential bid that began with big crowds and major debate moments fizzled out as Ms Harris struggled to articulate her ideology and policy platform.
Her campaign died in less than a year and it was Mr Biden who brought the now 59-year-old back under a national spotlight by adding her to his ticket.
Gil Duran, a former communications director for Ms Harris, called it "a big reversal of fortune".
"Many people didn't think she had the discipline and focus to ascend to a position in the White House so quickly... although people knew she had ambition and star potential. It was always clear that she had the raw talent," Duran said.
Ms Harris focused on several key initiatives while in the White House, and she was instrumental in many of the Biden administration's most touted accomplishments.
She set a new record for the most tie-breaking votes cast by a vice-president in the history of the Senate, helping pass the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan, which provided Covid-era stimulus payments and other relief.
Mr Biden also called upon Ms Harris to lead efforts addressing the root causes of migration amid a record influx of undocumented migrants at the US-Mexico border.
It is an issue opponents point to as one where she hasn't made enough progress, and she was criticised by Republicans and some Democrats for taking six months to plan a trip to the border after entering office.
More recently, Ms Harris has been the administration's point person to highlight the harms caused by abortion bans after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the half-century precedent guaranteeing the right to an abortion, in 2022.
The battle over reproductive rights took centre stage throughout the Democratic convention in August, aligning neatly with a broader animating message: freedom.
In her keynote DNC address, the biggest speech of her career, Ms Harris criticised Trump and Republicans as the architects of unpopular efforts to restrict abortion access around the country.
"Simply put, they are out of their minds," she said, promising to restore the protections afforded by Roe.
Ms Harris is also seeking to re-introduce herself to voters, with some polls showing many view Trump as closer to the centre of the political spectrum.
On the 2020 campaign trail, she touted left-wing leanings on immigration, LGBT rights and other issues but faced repeated attacks over her prosecutorial past.
Four years later, Ms Harris is presenting herself as the cop who will crack down on a convicted felon in Trump.
But she is also promising to deliver on a progressive agenda that lifts up middle-class families like her own.
"My entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people," she said.
The roots of Kamala Harris
Ms Harris was born in Oakland, California to two immigrant parents: an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father.
Her parents divorced when she was five and she was raised primarily by her Hindu single mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist.
Ms Harris speaks often about the lessons she bestowed upon her daughters.
"She was tough, courageous, a trailblazer in the fight for women’s health," Ms Harris told the DNC. "She taught us to never complain about injustice, but do something about it."
Ms Harris grew up engaged with her Indian heritage, joining her mother on visits to India, but she has said that her mother immersed both her younger sister Maya and her in Oakland's black culture.
"My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters," she wrote in her autobiography The Truths We Hold.
"She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women."
Her biracial roots and upbringing could make it easier to engage with and appeal to many Americans. Parts of the country with rapid demographic change - enough change to alter a region's politics - see her as an aspirational symbol.
Kamala as child with her mother and younger sister Maya
But it was her time at Howard University, one of the nation's preeminent historically black colleges and universities, which she has described as among the most formative experiences of her life.
Lita Rosario-Richardson met Kamala Harris while at Howard in the 1980s when students would gather on campus to hang out and discuss politics, fashion and gossip.
"I noticed she had a keen sense of argumentation," she said.
They bonded over an aptitude for energetic debate with campus Republicans, their experience growing up with single mothers, even the fact that they're both Libras. It was a formative era politically too.
"Reagan was president at the time and it was the apartheid era and there was a lot of talk about divestiture with 'trans Africa' and the Martin Luther King holiday issue," Ms Rosario-Richardson said.
"We know that, being descendants of enslaved people and people of colour coming out of colonisation, that we have a special role and having an education gives us a special position in society to help effect change," she explained - it was a philosophy and a call to action that was part of the university experience Ms Harris lived.
But Ms Harris also operates with ease in predominantly white communities. Her early years included a period in Canada. When Ms Gopalan Harris took a job teaching at McGill University, Kamala and Maya went with her, attending school in Montreal for five years.
Ms Harris says she's always been comfortable with her identity and simply describes herself as an "American".
She told the Washington Post in 2019 that politicians should not have to fit into compartments because of their colour or background.
"My point was: I am who I am. I'm good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I'm fine with it," she said.
The making of witty 'debate club' Kamala
From the very earliest, as her friend Ms Rosario-Richardson attests, she showed the skills that allowed her to be one of few women to break through barriers.
"That is what attracted me to get her to join debate team [at Howard University], a fearlessness," she said.
Wit and humour are parts of that. In a video posted to her social media in 2020 after winning the election, she shares the news of the win - with a very hearty laugh - with Mr Biden: "We did it, we did it Joe. You're going to be the next president of the United States!"
The laugh she shared with the then-president-elect, when making that first momentous phone call, was one her friend recognised immediately and intimately.
"She has always had that laugh, she has always had a sense of humour too, she had a sense of wit - even in the context of a university debate - to get those points across."
Kamala, 'Momala', history-maker
How to pronounce 'Kamala' - A lesson from her nieces
In 2014, then-Senator Harris married lawyer Doug Emhoff and became stepmother to his two children, Cole and Ella.
She wrote an article for Elle magazine in 2019 about the experience of becoming a stepmother and unveiled the name that came to dominate many headlines that followed.
"When Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella, and I agreed that we didn't like the term 'stepmom'. Instead they came up with the name 'Momala'."
Along with their dad, Cole and Ella were fixtures at the 2024 DNC, taking to the stage to celebrate Ms Harris and what they call their "big, beautiful blended family".
Her sister, Maya, niece Meena and - perhaps most memorably - her two grand-nieces also made appearances in Chicago.
Many argue she should also be seen and recognised as the descendant of another kind of family and that is the inheritor of generations of black female activists.
Nadia Brown, associate professor of political science and African American studies at Purdue University, told the BBC that Ms Harris follows in the footsteps of Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and Septima Clark, among others.
"She is heir to a legacy of grassroots organisers, elected officials, and unsuccessful candidates who paved this path to the White House," she said.
Correction 12 August 2024: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Kamala Harris had used her tie-breaking vote to confirm Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Related topics
- Published14 March
- Published19 November 2021
- Published20 January 2022
- Published20 January 2021
