Kamala Harris is a prominent political figure in the United States. She served as the Vice President of the United States from January 20, 2021, to January 20, 2025, under President Joe Biden, making history as the first woman, first Black American, and first South Asian American to hold the office. Harris has had a notable career in law and politics prior to becoming Vice President. She served as Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017 and as a U.S. Senator from California from 2017 to 2021. Throughout her career, she has been a vocal advocate for civil rights, criminal justice reform, and healthcare reform.
Kamala Harris Political Carrier
Joe Biden is more than this moment.
The crisis the president has struggled with for the past month should not erase his some 50 years of near-continuous service to the American people. Among other things, he has delivered time and again for Black America. That will be Mr. Biden’s legacy.
It’s for that reason that Democrats must now support the woman who has stood alongside him throughout his presidency. In the 2020 election, more than 81 million Americans voted for her to lead in the event that the president could not. We should give her the support she deserves in this moment. The attacks on her, as the highest elected Black woman in American history, will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
I have been thinking in recent days about a conversation I had with Mr. Biden when he was running four years ago. He told me in private he decided to come out of a well-deserved retirement because of what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017. A violent parade of neo-Nazis and Klansmen taking over the streets, and a spineless president who could not muster the courage to denounce racism, disgusted him enough that in his late 70s, he decided to put himself and his family through the ringer to save the soul of our nation.
His fierce commitment to delivering on promises has made him an incredibly effective president in just one term. He made a pledge during the campaign to select the first female vice president. He did. He vowed to Representative Jim Clyburn that he would put a Black woman on the Supreme Court. He delivered us Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. He promised me executive action on police accountability. I stood alongside him and the family of George Floyd as he signed an executive order to strengthen accountability in federal law enforcement agencies.
History will remember what this former lion of the Senate accomplished from the West Wing to improve Black communities across the nation. Just look at the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. These are giant accomplishments for any president, all packed into less than a full term. America will feel the impact of these legislative actions for generations to come.