Janis Campbell - Kamala Harris

Published in 2020 by

Lucent Press, an Imprint of Greenhaven Publishing, LLC

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Copyright 2019, 2020 Lucent Press, an Imprint of Greenhaven Publishing, LLC.

Revised Edition

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Managing Editor for BlueAppleWorks: Melissa McClellan

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Photo Research: Jane Reid

Editor: Marcia Abramson

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Cataloging-in-Publication-Data

Names: Campbell, Janis. | Collison, Catherine.

Title: Kamala Harris / Janis Campbell and Catherine Collison.

Description: New York: Lucent Press, 2019. | Series: Women who won't be silenced: the stories of strong women | Includes glossary and index.

Identifiers: ISBN 9781534566507 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781534566514 (library bound) | ISBN

9781534566521 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Harris, Kamala D. -- Juvenile literature. | African American politicians -- Biography

-- Juvenile literature. | African American lawyers--Biography--Juvenile literature.

Classification: LCC E185.96 C67 2019 | DDC 324.092396073 B--dc23

Manufactured in the United States of America

CPSIA Compliance Information: Batch #BW19KL: For Further Information contact: Greenhaven Publishing LLC, New York, New York at 1-844-317-7404.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 2

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

Y ou could say Kamala Devi Harris was born at precisely the right time, in the right place, and to the right parents to help shape her into the leader she is today. The senator was born in Oakland, California, on October 20, 1964.

Her parents were graduate students at the nearby University of California, Berkeley, a campus buzzing with political activity and student activism in the 1960s. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a student from India, earned a Ph.D. in endocrinology at UC Berkeley and became a renowned scientist and breast cancer researcher. Her father, Donald Harris, an economics student from Jamaica, earned his Ph.D. in 1966 and is a professor of economics at prestigious Stanford University in California. Her parents were not only scholars, but also actively engaged in the civil rights movement.

Kamala's sister Maya (left) is also a lawyer and a public policy advocate, as well as an analyst with MSNBC.

Issues of social justice and activism became part of Kamalas life, too, even as a toddler. In fact, on her U.S. Senate website, she shares that she had a strollers-eye view of the Civil Rights Movement which was taking center stage at Berkeley and in Oakland, as well as on college campuses and in cities across the country.

Kamala has a younger sister, Maya, who was born in 1967. Although their parents divorced when they were young, both women celebrate both sides of their family heritage. They have visited Jamaica and have traveled to India.

Kamala and her sister moved to Canada when their mother accepted a job in Montreal, in Canadas Quebec province. Her mother was a distinguished breast cancer researcher at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital and Department of Medicine at McGill University in Montreal.

After high school, Kamala moved to Washington, D.C., to attend Howard University. She has often cited her years at Howard, where she studied political science and economics, as ones that were extremely important in shaping her future.

After graduating in 1986, she attended law school at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, in San Francisco, earning her Juris Doctor degree (law degree) in 1989. She passed the state bar exam and started practicing law in 1990. Kamala Devi Harris was on her way!

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, MANY OF YOU MAY KNOW, MY PARENTS WERE ACTIVISTS IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. AND THERES SOMETHING I REMEMBER FROM MY CHILDHOOD THAT REALLY MADE ME BELIEVE IN THE POSSIBILITIES OF OUR COUNTRY. I SAW PEOPLE OF ALL AGES, ALL COLORS, ALL RELIGIONS, ALL BACKGROUNDS, UNIFIED IN THEIR FIGHT FOR JUSTICE.

Kamala Harriss speech at the 2016 California Democratic Party Convention as shared on her website blog

CHILDREN ARE OUR NATIONS FUTURE. WE MUST LISTEN TO THEM ABOUT WHAT THEY CARE ABOUT AND GIVE THEM A VOICE IN OUR GOVERNMENT.