Women of Note

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

2020 Election Wrap-Up, Women’s Congressional Policy Institute: As of press time,130 women have been elected to serve in the 117th Congress

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that in the same year we celebrate the centennial anniversary of women securing the right to vote we also recognize the unprecedented number of women who ran for Congress. According to the Center for American Women and Politics, nearly 650 women ran for seats in the House of Representatives and Senate in 2020, with more than 300 of these candidates making it through the primaries and into the general election. As of press time, 130 women have been elected to serve in the 117th Congress. This number includes the 18 incumbent Senators who were not up for reelection this year, as well as the four Delegates to the House of Representatives reelected from American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. However, a number of races have not been called, so the number of women serving in the next Congress is expected to include a record number. more »

Jill Norgren Writes: Did Women in the US Campaign for Elective Office Fully Invested in the Prospect of Winning? “I cannot vote, but I can be voted for”

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Judiciary Committee Hearings on Supreme Court Nominee, Amy Coney Barrett; Unlike most other congressional documents, hearings are not available from the Senate or House Document Rooms

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Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving: Exceptional Garments Alongside 34 of Her Drawings and Paintings

This critically acclaimed exhibition originated at the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City in 2012. It was further developed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2018 and made its American debut in Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2019. The exhibition presents personal belongings — including photographs, letters, jewelry, cosmetics, medical corsets, and exceptional garments — alongside 34 of Kahlo’s drawings, paintings, and a lithograph that span Kahlo’s entire adult life.The majority of artworks are unique to this venue, including a selection of Kahlo’s drawings that are on public view for the first time and that highlight Kahlo’s time in San Francisco. more »