FIRST, WON’T BE
Black, S. Asian veep makes history and inspires women
She was singular in the many ways she made history Wednesday, yet she stood in solidarity with women everywhere.
Kamala Harris raised her hand, swore her inauguration oath and became the first woman, Black American and South Asian-American to hold the second-highest office in the country.
Dressed in bipartisan violet — a signature color of suffragists — she ascended to her role as the 49th vice president of the United States in a ceremony presided over by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina member of the highest court in the land.
It was a transcendent moment for equality and unity — and a stark rebuke of the prior administration’s divisive rhetoric.
Women from coast-to-coast flooded social media with pictures of themselves and their daughters savoring every shot of Harris on that stage.
“It’s an honor to be your vice president,” Harris, 56, said in one of her first Twitter posts in her new role.
“Let’s get to work,” she wrote in another.
Harris has been working toward this history-making moment her entire life.
The daughter of a father from Jamaica and a mother from India, she was largely raised in Berkeley, Calif., by single mom Shyamala Gopalan, who graduated from the University of Delhi at 19 and moved to the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in nutrition and endocrinology by age 25, the same age she gave birth to Harris.
Gopalan, who died in 2009, was an accomplished scientist and civil rights activist who made sure Harris and her younger sister, Maya, knew how to fight for their values.
“Shyamala was fearless. She taught her daughters to always be the best they could be and not compare themselves to anyone else. To do what’s in your heart. And Kamala embodies that,” Derreck Johnson, a longtime family friend who went to Catholic high school with Maya and attended Harris’ inauguration in person Wednesday, told the Daily News.
Harris earned her undergraduate degree from Howard University and her law degree at Hastings
College in San Francisco and became a sex-crimes prosecutor in Northern California before first running for office.
She became the first woman elected district attorney of San Francisco in 2004.
Harris went on to become the first woman of color elected as California’s attorney general and the first Black person to represent California in the U.S. Senate after she won the 2016 election for the seat vacated by Barbara Boxer.
When she and Joe Biden won the White House, she delivered a stirring speech filled with quotes
that quickly became iconic.
“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities,” she said as she assumed her place in history.
“To watch known since this person we were
I’ve 16 become vice president was a beautiful thing,” Johnson, 56, said Wednesday.
“A group of us here all grew up together in Oakland. We all went through an identity crisis coming up, but [Harris] always knew who she was. She’s just a strong human being.”
He said it was emotional and “euphoric” to witness Harris’ inauguration in person.
“She’s so, so smart but also so down to earth and fun. I knew she was going to be successful,” the restaurateur said. “I teared up today and thought of her mother smiling down, and my mother, too. They worked so hard to make sure we got the best educations.”
President Biden paid tribute to his vice president during his inaugural address, signaling the important role she’ll assume in the new administration.
“We see the first woman in American history elected to the national office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Don’t tell me things can’t change,” he said.
In addition to her work in the executive branch, Harris also will serve as the tie-breaking vote in the evenly split Senate.