Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s VP pick. These Black Kansas City area residents are elated
If California Senator Kamala Harris is sworn into the White House as vice president in January, Kansas Citian Sharon Sanders Brooks wants to be there.
“I’m extremely elated,” Sanders Brooks, a former Kansas City councilwoman and Democratic state representative said Wednesday of Harris’ selection to the presidential ticket. “It’s a long time coming, long time coming.”
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden named Harris on Tuesday as his running mate — making her the first Black woman on a major party’s presidential ticket. Sanders Brooks, who is also a historian, noted that in 1952, Charlotta Amanda Spears Bass was the first African American woman nominated for Vice President on the Progressive Party ticket.
Harris’ selection is historic in many senses. It also marks the first time a person of Asian descent is on the presidential ticket. Born to a Jamaican father and Indian mother, she often speaks of her deep bond with her late mother, whom she has called her single biggest influence.
‘She earned it; we earned it.’
Sanders Brooks, who attended Bennet College, one of America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities, said the joy she felt Tuesday eventually turned to tears as she thought of the role Harris and other Black women of the Democratic party have played in the years leading up to this historic moment.
“She earned it; we earned it,” Sanders Brooks said of Harris and women of color. “We have been the backbone of the democratic party for eons and have not received recognition for it or reward for it, so now our time has come.”
Sanders Brooks is a member of the same sorority as Harris, who attended Howard University.
As she processed Biden’s announcement, Sanders Brooks recalled finding her mother’s first voter registration card tucked away in a wallet. It was from the first election she voted in after moving to the North. The paper was dated 1963.
“As a historian, I honor those suffragists, African American suffragists, who were part of the suffragist movement but never got their due, were never acknowledged in history books,” said Sanders Brooks, who now runs a Black historical consulting service out of Kansas City.
The last time she felt this way was when former President Barack Obama announced his campaign ahead of the 2008 election. She just wishes Congressman John Lewis had lived a couple weeks longer to experience it, too.
Carmaletta Williams, Executive Director of the Black Archives of Mid-America Kansas City, called the selection of Harris an “applaudable” and “wonderful” sign for the country.
“We have been going through a lot of racial strife, most of it instigated by our current president, but I think that her nomination and this Biden-Harris ticket shows us that the country is ready to move forward,” Williams said.
Williams was of the generation that worked diligently at breaking glass ceilings for women. Now, Harris is doing that for women and for Black people around the country.
“We’ve had [President Donald] Trump maligning everything Black in this country, everything Brown, everything different,” Williams said. “So I think this nomination and this election is just a positive reinforcement that we are a nation that values people.”
‘The consciousness of America is starting to change.’
Harris joins the ticket at a time of immense racial tensions and crisis in the nation. The coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected Black Americans and other people of color. Protests against systemic racism and brutality are top of mind for potential voters.
“The consciousness of America is starting to change,” said the Rev. Rodney Williams, president of the Kansas City Branch of the NAACP. ”And I believe it has direct results of the protests that have been taking place across America.”
He described a “dark and dismal” situation born not only of the coronavirus pandemic, but also of the pandemic of systematic racism and poverty.
But Williams said he started to feel hope when protests began emerging across the nation earlier this year. That hope is strengthened with Harris’ selection, and, he hopes, a Democratic win.
“The ultimate determination is going to be on the American public whether or not they come out to vote,” he said.
He also described Harris as standing on the shoulders of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and countless other African Americans who fought for equal rights.
Councilwoman Melissa Robinson said “adding Kamala Harris to the ticket energizes the electorate in a way that only Harris can.
“I believe this inclusive ticket will propel so many more to do the heavy lifting to win in November,” Robinson, of Kansas City’s 3rd District, said. “Her addition has many of us exhaling and believing in our hearts that equity is within sight.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 12, 2020 at 5:00 PM.
