Leila Rasheed - Kamala Harris

Published in the UK by Scholastic, 2021

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Text Leila Rasheed, 2021

Illustrations by Sarah Papworth Scholastic, 2021

ISBN 978 07023 1233 5

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Contents

EXTRA CONTENT

INTRODUCTION:

A COUNTRY OF POSSIBILITIES

WHILE I MAY BE THE FIRST WOMAN IN THIS OFFICE, I WONT BE THE LAST BECAUSE EVERY LITTLE GIRL WATCHING TONIGHT SEES THAT THIS IS A COUNTRY OF POSSIBILITIES.

Kamala Harris, This is a Country of Possibilities speech (2020)

A New Day

On 20 January 2021, as the Covid-19 pandemic raged across the world, Joseph Joe Biden became the forty-sixth president of the United States of America. Joe Biden was a seventy-eighty-year-old white man from Delaware on the East Coast of the USA. He had been a senator, representing his state of Delaware, for many, many years and he had been vice president of the USA for eight years under President Obama. He was a familiar face at this kind of event and had been to this ceremony at the Capitol building before. He was the kind of person that Americans were used to seeing become president. It felt like the country was going back to normal after a chaotic four years.

His second in command, however, was a complete contrast. Kamala (pronounced Karma-la) Harris an energetic Black woman with a big, confident smile and a determined expression in her eyes was much younger, only fifty-six. She had only been a senator for a few years, and she was from the opposite coast of the USA: the San Francisco Bay Area. Just a few moments before the new president took his oath, she had taken hers.

Kamala Harris was now the forty-ninth vice president of the USA. It was the most powerful position that any woman in the USA had ever been in. If Joe Biden represented back to normal, Kamala Harris represented things are different now.

The special ceremony where a president and vice president are sworn in is called an inauguration. The word comes from ancient Rome, when a priest called an augur would carry out rituals to discover whether the gods were happy with the peoples choice of leader. In the USA, Inauguration Day is when the person who won the presidential election months before, makes a promise to the American people that they will be a good leader. Only when they have made that promise called the Presidential Oath of Office do they really become the president. The vice president has to swear an oath of office too. They will be the second in command to the president, and take over from the president if they become unable to do the job.

Inauguration Day is an exciting and joyful time, and people come from all over the USA to be part of celebrations in the capital, Washington, DC. The new president and vice president make speeches, and there are prayers and performances by the best musicians, poets and speakers in the USA. There are also celebrations, balls, parades and parties leading up to the day itself. Traditionally, the previous president is there to show support for democracy and the role of president, even if they arent happy about giving up the presidency. People get together and share a sense of hope for the future. Some things were the same as usual for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Inauguration Day 2021 but many were not.

PROMISING TO PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION

There are performances, prayers and parties on Inauguration Day, but swearing the Oath of Office is the only part of the day that absolutely has to happen! The president puts their hand on a Bible and repeats these words:

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution is a document that the people who first founded the United States of America in 1776 wrote, to say what their country should be like. The Constitution wasnt perfect it famously spoke of liberty and equality, but left out anyone who wasnt a white man. Over time, it has been changed and improved. Every time a president is inaugurated, it continues a history of democracy in the USA that started with the first words of the Constitution: We, the People of the United States meaning that the USA was going to be a country ruled not by kings and queens, but by its citizens.

An Inauguration Day Like No Other

In early 2020, the Covid-19 virus had begun spreading across the world and soon reached the USA. There was no cure and, at that point, no vaccine. Millions of people were falling ill and dying, as the virus passed easily from person to person. That meant that big gatherings of people were out of the question even for Inauguration Day. Instead of the big, noisy parades through Washington, DC, and shows of support from celebrity singers, actors and performers, there were virtual concerts and events on social media. The number of guests and spectators was limited, too. Usually, the public would have been invited and the Mall, the grounds of the Capitol building, thrown open so the atmosphere was like a rock concert. But there was no way that could happen in 2021. Instead, the few invited guests mostly politicians and family members wore masks and had to stay two metres (six feet) from each other. The sight of some of the most powerful people in the world freezing on fold-up chairs and wearing face coverings, was far from the usual image of celebration. The knowledge that so many people had died in the last year made the mood much more sombre than it should have been. But Covid-19 was not the only shadow hanging over the day.

Dangerous Days for Democracy

The themes for Inauguration Day were America United and Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union. They had been chosen carefully, because just a few weeks before, American democracy had seemed in awful danger. The United States was far from united. Although the Democratic Party had won the election, the former president, Republican Donald Trump, had refused to accept the results. He said, with no proof, that the election had been stolen from him.

On 6 January 2021, he made a speech to thousands of his supporters in front of the Capitol building in Washington, DC, where the elected lawmakers of the USA were counting the final votes. He basically told his supporters to fight against the result and so they did. The crowd turned and marched down to the Capitol building. They stormed the building, smashing windows, breaking things and overwhelming the police. Shockingly, five people died before the army and police got control and stopped the violence. Many of the thousands of people who had attacked the Capitol were white supremacists racist people who believe that white people are better than anyone else and should have power over those who are not white. The mob had carried racist flags and shouted racist slogans.