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A28 u.s. news
Diahuebs 21 Januari 2021

Vice President Harris: A new chapter opens in US politics

San Francisco Bay Area. The American history elected to
drumline from Harris' alma national office, Vice Presi-
mater, Howard University, dent Kamala Harris. Don't
joined the presidential escort. tell me things can't change,"
Biden said.
After the ceremony, she and
Emhoff escorted former Vice Harris' swearing-in holds
President Mike Pence and his more symbolic weight than
wife, Karen Pence, out of the that of any vice president in
Capitol, a gesture that would modern times.
normally be performed by
the incoming and outgoing She will expand the defini-
presidents, but Trump did tion of who gets to hold pow-
not attended the inaugura- er in American politics, said
tion. Harris, Pence and their Martha S. Jones, a professor
spouses spoke for several of history at Johns Hopkins
minutes before the Pences University and the author
departed. of “Vanguard: How Black
Women Broke Barriers, Won
To celebrate the occasion, the the Vote, and Insisted on
Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, Equality for All."
the nation’s oldest sorority for
Black women, which Harris People who want to under-
joined at Howard University, stand Harris and connect
declared Wednesday as Soror with her will have to learn
Kamala D. Harris Day. Mem- what it means to graduate
bers of the sorority watching from a historically Black col-
(AP) — Vice President institutional racism and con- the stage for the rise of a new the celebrations across the lege and university rather
Kamala Harris broke the fronting a pandemic that has class of Democratic stars. country were clad in pearls, than an Ivy League school.
barrier Wednesday that disproportionately devastated as was Harris, and the soror- They will have to understand
has kept men at the top Black and brown communi- After Harris' own presiden- ity's pink and green colors. Harris' traditions, like the
ranks of American power ties. tial bid fizzled, her rise con- Hindu celebration of Diwali,
for more than two cen- tinued when Biden chose her “There is a pride I can’t put Jones said.
turies when she took the Those close to Harris say as his running mate last Au- into words,” said Elizabeth
oath to hold the nation's she'll bring an important — gust. Harris had been a close Shelby, a member of the so- “Folks are going to have to
second-highest office. and often missing — per- friend of Beau Biden, his el- rority's Alpha Psi chapter, adapt to her rather than her
spective to the debates on der son and a former Dela- who watched the inaugura- adapting to them,” Jones said.
Harris was sworn in as the how to overcome the many ware attorney general who tion from her home in Nash-
first female U.S. vice presi- hurdles facing the new ad- died in 2015 of cancer. ville, Tennessee. “It is such a Her election to the vice pres-
dent — and the first Black ministration. joy to see her rise to this place idency should be just the
woman and person of South The inauguration activities in our country. It is such a joy beginning of putting Black
Asian descent to hold the po- “In many folks' lifetimes, included nods to her history- to know that she is one of us, women in leadership posi-
sition — in front of the U.S. we experienced a segregated making rise and her personal that she represents us.” tions, Jones said, particularly
Capitol by Supreme Court United States," said Lateefah story. Biden, in his inaugural ad- after the role Black women
Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Simon, a civil rights advocate dress, reflected on the 1913 played in organizing and
and longtime Harris friend Harris used two Bibles to march for women's suffrage turning out voters in the No-
The moment was steeped and mentee. “You will now take the oath, one that be- the day before President vember election.
in history and significance have a Black woman who will longed to Supreme Court Woodrow Wilson's inaugu-
in more ways than one. She walk into the White House Justice Thurgood Marshall, ration, during which some “We will all learn what hap-
was escorted to the podium not as a guest but as a sec- the late civil rights icon marchers were heckled and pens to the kind of capacities
by Capitol Police Officer Eu- ond in command of the free whom Harris often cites as attacked. and insights of Black women
gene Goodman, the officer world." inspiration, and Regina Shel- in politics when those capaci-
who single-handedly took on ton, who helped raise Harris “Today, we mark the swear- ties and insights are permit-
a mob of Trump supporters as Harris — the child of immi- during her childhood in the ing in of the first woman in ted to lead,” Jones said.
they tried to breach the Sen- grants, a stepmother of two
ate floor during the Capitol and the wife of a Jewish man
insurrection that sought to — “carries an intersectional
overturn the election results. story of so many Ameri-
Harris was wearing clothes cans who are never seen and
from two young, emerging heard."
Black designers — a deep
purple dress and coat. She will address the nation
later Wednesday at the Lin-
After taking the oath of office, coln Memorial.
a beaming Harris hugged her
husband, Douglas Emhoff, Harris, 56, moves into the
and gave President Joe Biden vice presidency just four
a first bump. years after she first came
to Washington as a senator
Her rise is historic in any con- from California, where she'd
text, another moment when a served as attorney general
stubborn boundary falls away, and as San Francisco's district
expanding the idea of what's attorney. She had expected
possible in American politics. to work with a White House
But it's particularly mean- run by Hillary Clinton, but
ingful because Harris is tak- President Donald Trump's
ing office at a moment when victory quickly scrambled
Americans are grappling over the nation's capital and set