In Kamala Harris, Black women leaders see historic strides — and work ahead

CHICAGO — Only hours before Vice President Kamala Harris officially accepted the Democratic nomination for president at the United Center in Chicago, six of the seven Black female chairs of their state Democratic parties — the highest-ever number of Black women state party chairs — gathered exactly a mile east of the convention hall at the interactive WNDR Museum.

But the colorful, whimsical backdrop belied the seriousness and symbolism of the gathering: A celebration of the seven women — all of them the first Black woman ever elected to the post — on the night when Harris would take the stage as yet another historic first.

“There’s only seven, but that is a high water mark for us,” Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.), who is also the chair of the Georgia Democrats, said in an interview Saturday. “The Democratic Party is recognizing the leadership of Black women who have been the backbone of the party. And it is making a difference. Now, we get to lead and shape the vision.”

Harris is the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to become a presidential nominee for a major party. She has long touted her background as a biracial woman — her mother, an Indian immigrant, and her father from Jamaica — and her ascent has been a point of pride for Black and Asian communities. The Black community has been particularly influential in her life: She grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Oakland, attended Howard University, a historically Black college, and is a member of the nation’s oldest Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Williams — who missed the event because of a scheduling conflict — is a fellow AKA and HBCU graduate. And while she said that, in Georgia, Harris’s nomination “even exceeds that level of excitement and engagement” of former president Barack Obama’s history-making victory in 2008, she is also acutely aware of just how much work remains to be done.

Only five years ago, for instance, when she was vying to lead the Georgia Democratic Party, she recalled being told by some that the party “wasn’t ready for a Black woman to lead it.”

In many ways, Thursday’s reception was as much a triumphant recognition as an urgent call to action. In interviews, many of the chairs were quick to note that there has never been a Black woman governor, and that only one Black woman, Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), serves in the U.S. Senate.

And while Black women have made historic gains in politics — as of 2023, a record number served in congressional, statewide elective executive, and state legislative offices — they still lag in representation, especially for their longtime role serving as the spine of the Democratic Party.

According to data from the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University 2023, Black women comprise fewer than 6 percent of officeholders in Congress, statewide elective executive offices, and state legislatures despite representing 7.7 percent of the population, and they are mayors in eight of the nation’s 100 most populous cities.

Harris’s ascent, too, has brought with it a slew of racist and misogynistic attacks, including from her opponent, former president Donald Trump, who has questioned her intelligence, describing her as “not smart.”

“More progress is needed,” said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers’s CAWP, noting the similar lines of attack Hillary Clinton faced when she ran for president as the Democratic nominee in 2016.

But while “it’s not going to be fixed by the election of one woman at the very top,” Walsh added that the significance of a Harris nomination, let alone victory, cannot be overstated symbolically and substantively, noting that Harris has very deliberately and carefully elevated women and people of color in her inner circle.

It was these two inextricably bound realities — the distance they had traveled, and the miles still to go — that the party chairs seemed to grapple with this week.

Jeanna Repass, chair of the Kansas Democratic Party, was also the first Black woman to be nominated for statewide office in Kansas when she unsuccessfully ran for secretary of state in 2022. Repass said she has just two words to describe how she feels in this moment: “pride and hope.”

Tearing up, she recalled growing up the daughter of a civil rights activist, who always told her and her brother “that this country was our responsibility,” and the pride of her mother, who died before she clinched the Secretary of State nomination.

And yet, Repass said, even the process of President Joe Biden stepping aside — in which Harris, his No. 2, was initially mentioned as among one of many names who should replace him — underscored the work that remains when it comes to elevating Black women.

“There has to be intentionality about promoting Black women and Black women leadership and Black women voices, because as we said when we started the conversation, we’re the legs and the backbone that the party stands on,” Repass said.

Daniele Monroe-Moreno, chair of the Nevada Democrats, similarly spoke of the significance of the moment, as well as the challenges to get to it. When she ran for — and won — the seat she still holds in the Nevada Assembly in 2016, she recalled that the “gentleman” who served before her asked if she really thought she was qualified to run and represent the district, because it wasn’t a “Black neighborhood.”

Now, she added, “Kamala getting this nomination is exactly what we need as a country, but definitely what I need my family, for all the little girls and little boys and my family to see and that’s what America needs.”

Several of the chairwomen said that Biden’s decision to step down not only turbocharged the trajectory of Harris’s political career, but also potentially the prospects of other Black women in downballot races throughout the country.

Christale Spain, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, recounted how she cried when she first saw CNN announce that Trump had defeated Clinton in 2016.

“That’s the first election I cried over because I felt so rejected in that moment, like if you don’t want her, with all of her achievements, all of her accomplishments, what are you gonna do with me? You definitely don’t want me,” Spain said.

Now, however, she said she has an almost indescribable “opposite feeling” seeing Harris atop her party’s ticket.

“It’s this deep joy that makes you tearful,” she said, pausing as tears ran down her face. “Everybody’s work — for my mom, my grandmother — all this stuff is coming to light for women, for all women.”

Alicia Andrews, chair of the Oklahoma Democratic Party and the first Black person to lead any organized party in her state, said that while she was excited to support Obama’s 2008 candidacy, at the time she was anxious about whether he could win. When Clinton lost in 2016, she felt as though maybe the country had not progressed as far as she’d hoped.

But now, watching Harris, she said she thinks that those various “firsts” — Obama, Clinton — who came before her helped pave the way for the vice president to run a campaign that transcends exclusively having to grapple with its barrier-breaking nature while inspiring young Democrats and women of color to run for office.

Unlike Obama, for instance, who largely had a White male inner circle, Harris has worked to include a range of diverse backgrounds when hiring aides and advisers.

“They can see that the vice president — or the president, frankly — is hiring people that look like them, that represent them, and that’s who she is,” Andrews said.

Lavora Barnes, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said she tries to emulate the outreach she received from other Black female leaders before her — specifically pointing to the first time she spoke to Donna Brazile, former chair of the Democratic National Committee. Brazile was also the first Black woman to run a major presidential campaign, managing Al Gore’s in 2000.

In 2012, while state director for Obama’s reelection campaign, Barnes recounted working almost nonstop and, while feeling exhausted, telling staff how amazing it would be if Brazile just called her. Then, sitting in her office one day, her phone rang.

Laughing, Barnes described first thinking she was being pranked when she picked up the unknown number and heard Brazile’s throaty southern accent. “Then I thought, nobody’s that good at the accent,” she said.

“She was just doing what we do,” Barnes explained. “She was being a Black woman who saw a Black woman in Michigan doing the work and decided to reach out and say, ‘Good job. Thank you for what you’re doing. We see you. Keep up the good work.’

Barnes smiled, remembering, as her fellow party chairs congregated near her, preparing to take a picture.

Several moments later, during the speaking portion of the program, Rosa Colquitt — chair of the Oregon Democratic Party — seemed to echo Barnes’s sentiment, specifically thanking the Black women who came before her.

She directly referenced Mississippi civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, who delivered a famous speech during the 1964 Democratic convention, where she called out the party for its failure to back voting rights for Black Americans and challenged the seating of an all-White Mississippi delegation at the convention. Thursday was the 60th anniversary of her speech.

“I want to speak to the fact that we have made progress,” she said. “There’s a lot more to be made, but we have made progress because six of my sisters are here tonight. And because Fannie Lou Hamer, Unita Blackwell and Victoria Gray laid the foundation. I stand on their shoulders.”

Then, as the program wound down, all of the party chairs and attendees — many clad in shades of suffragette white and cream — raced out of the museum to get to the convention hall in time to cheer on yet another groundbreaking woman of color who they hope will, if she becomes president, serve as just another set of shoulders to stand upon.