Book Reviews

Jo Freeman Reviews Vice President Kamala Harris: Her Path to the White House

Vice President Kamala Harris: Her Path to the White House

by Malaika Adero

New York: Sterling, 2021, 186 pages with 120 photos, $29.95 hardcover

If you like photos, you’ll love this book. It is packed with some of the most striking photos of KH and her life that I have seen.

While it’s mostly photos, there is some text. It has many of her own speeches, including her 2011 inaugural address as California Attorney General, her 2020 speech accepting the Democratic nomination, and several commencement addresses.

The author provides some fascinating tidbits of information. Where else can you read that Harris’ sorority sisters donated checks written for $19.08 to the Biden-Harris campaign, commemorating the founding of Alpha Kappa Alpha in 1908? The author says that the Biden Victory Fund received more than 11,000 such checks, from an AKA membership of 300,000.

There are also some holes. The author is not familiar with Berkeley in the Sixties, even though it was very important to Harris’ parents, who were Cal graduate students at that time. One striking photo shows her mother and a friend at what the caption says is a civil rights protest in Berkeley but without a specific date or place. Since I was a Cal undergraduate during those years, and very active in the civil rights movement, I recognized the scene. It was a small plaza at the southern entrance to the campus, where we put up our tables and passed out literature. The photo does not depict a civil rights protest, though the signs on the tables clearly indicate that it was late Spring of 1963 during or after the Birmingham demonstrations.

The book raises lots of questions. KH’s mother was a high caste Hindu but sent her daughters to a Christian church in nearby Oakland. Why? Both parents were active in the civil rights movement in Berkeley but KH chose electoral politics rather than radical politics. I well remember the split in California during KH’s formative years, with radicals often denouncing those who pursued elective office as sell-outs. Nor is there anything about her political mentors or her base. Electoral politics requires money, contacts and name recognition. Where did KH find these?

Given her international origins, one might expect her to study international affairs rather than go to a local law school and from there become a criminal prosecutor. “Her path to the White House” must have been very curvey.

KH’s parents separated when she was eight. She was raised by her mother. Nonetheless, one gets the impression that KH saw herself as fundamentally a Black woman. Although she visited her relatives in both India and Jamaica, this book paints those identities as more background than foreground. Having participated in electoral politics in Brooklyn, where we have people from everywhere, I know that African-Americans and West Indians don’t like each other. Yet KH chose Black as her primary identity.

This is a gorgeous book, well suited to be a graduation present for a young woman of any color. Buy it for the photos, not for the text.

Tags: african-americans, alpha kappa alpha, civil rights movement, electoral politics, inaugural address as california attorney general, west indians

Jo Freeman Reviews: When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America

Jo Freeman Reviews: "In 1968, change was happening all over the world. In the US, mounting opposition to the war in Viet Nam and several burgeoning social movements all demanded attention. People representing many of these came to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago in hopes of reaching the larger public with their message. Heather Hendershot writes about the news media – especially the three network TV companies – at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. What would the news networks cover?" more »

Jo Freeman Reviews: Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé

What do Abigail Adams and Beyonce have in common? Elizabeth Coombs says they are both feminist patriots, a label she also applies to Phyllis Schlafly and Mary Church Terrell. This book profiles over nine women, some extensively, to illustrate how the drive for sex equality continues the ideals of the American revolution. Not all of the women in this book are public figures. Even those who were purely private had something to say as they fought for female independence. more »

Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

Julia Sneden Wrote: My mind’s eye can still see the face of the Children’s Librarian, although I have long since forgotten her name. We will be wise to continue to back up our knowledge of history and literature and art and science with hard copy. She kept up with my reading level, suggesting writers and books that she thought I might enjoy, feeding my curiosity and interests. I believe that curiosity is genetically programmed into every child. The first way a child explores the world is through direct, sensory experience. Later on, the mastery of spoken language (oh, those questions!) provides information, but ultimately, it is learning how to read that opens a child’s mind to the endless possibilities of a world of literature and science and history and human thought." more »

Jo Freeman Reviews: The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, A Novel by William Alsup

Jo Freeman Reviews: "You read dialogue and details and personal stories that you won’t find in official testimony. Reading the Warren Commission volumes might not be exciting, but this book is. The questions and answers in the trial have to be fiction, because Oswald never went on trial. But.... you still feel like you have a front row seat in the court room. There are plenty of conspiracy theories, both real and fictional... These were enhanced by the fact that Oswald had trained as a Marine marksman and then defected to Russia. He married a Russian woman and returned to the US. The author had his pick of theories to complicate the “trial,” without picking any of them.... There were also quite a few mysteries. People disagreed over whether they heard three, four, or five shots. They also disagreed over where they came from. Why were only two bullets found? The lawyers in the book debate these mysteries as they try to figure out what really happened." more »