Kamala Harris

Kamala Devi Harris was born on 20 October 1964 in Oakland, California, to a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, both academics and civil rights activists who met at the University of California, Berkeley. She attended Howard University, a historically Black institution, before earning her law degree at the University of California, Hastings.

Harris built a career as a prosecutor, becoming San Francisco's District Attorney in 2004 and California's Attorney General in 2011 — the first woman, first Black person and first South Asian American to hold that statewide office. In 2016 she was elected to the United States Senate, representing California, where she gained national prominence for pointed questioning during Senate committee hearings.

In August 2020, Harris was selected as Joe Biden's running mate, and on 20 January 2021 she was sworn in as the 49th Vice President of the United States — becoming the first woman, first Black person and first person of South Asian descent to hold the office in the nation's history. She oversaw a range of policy portfolios during her term, including voting rights and semiconductor investment initiatives.

In 2024, Harris became the Democratic Party's presidential nominee following Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race, making her the first Black and South Asian woman to lead a major American party's presidential ticket, before continuing her public career in the years that followed.