Kamala Harris (born October 20, 1964, Oakland, California, U.S.) is the 49th vice president of the United States (2021– ) in the Democratic administration of Pres. Joe Biden. She is the first woman, the first Black American, and the first Asian American to hold the post. She had previously served in the U.S. Senate (2017–21) and as attorney general of California (2011–17). In July 2024, following his poor performance in a nationally televised debate with Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump, Biden abandoned his bid for reelection and endorsed Harris as the Democratic Party’s nominee in the presidential election of 2024. In early August, Harris became the Democrats’ presumptive presidential candidate by winning nearly all of the virtual votes of party delegates.

Donald J. Harris and Shyamala Gopalan met as students as part of a Black student group at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962. Harris was an economics doctoral student from Jamaica; Gopalan came from India to study nutrition and endocrinology. Harris spoke; Gopalan, who wasn’t Black but was welcomed by the group as a person of color, was intrigued by what she heard. The two soon became something of a power couple in the civil rights movement on campus. They married in 1963, and their first daughter, Kamala, was born in 1964. Their second daughter, Maya, was born in 1967.

The marriage foundered, and the couple separated and were divorced in 1972. The children were raised largely by their mother but saw their father on weekends. While growing up, Kamala Harris maintained close contact with her Indian family and frequently traveled with her mother and sister to Chennai, the capital of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. She studied political science and economics at Howard University, a historically Black college. While there, she pledged to the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, one of the “Divine Nine” sororities and fraternities founded by Black students. She was also on the debate team and elected to the student council. After graduating from Howard in 1986, Harris earned a law degree (1989) from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly known as Hastings College).