A Historic Moment for Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris

Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris has been breaking barriers for years. As the first woman ever elected as part of a presidential ticket, she has officially cracked the glass ceiling. Senator Harris is not only the first woman elected to the vice presidency but the first person of Indian descent and the first Black individual to take on the office in our nation's 244-year history.

Being the first is not new to Senator Harris though. She became California’s first female attorney general in 2010 and the state's first Black attorney general. She also became the first South Asian American senator and the second African American woman in the U.S. Congress in 2016.

With all major news outlets projecting former Vice President Joe Biden as the winner on Nov. 7 after Pennsylvania went blue, tipping Biden over the 270 electoral vote threshold, people around the nation erupted in celebration of this historic moment.

In Kamala Harris’s Vice President-Elect acceptance speech Saturday night, she thanked all the “women who worked to secure and protect the right to vote for over a century,” thanking, “Women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality, liberty, and justice for all, including the Black women, who are too often overlooked, but so often prove that they are the backbone of our democracy.”

Harris went on to say while she will be the first woman to hold this office, she will not be the last.

Other female politicians were feeling the excitement of this historic moment including Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. She spoke about what Harris’ election means to her on CNN’s State of the Union program recently saying, "It's really remarkable and you can't be what you can't see. That is very often said and it's so amazing that so many little girls are growing up with this being a norm for them."

Harris is the third woman to run on a presidential ticket for the vice presidential seat after former Governor Sarah Palin ran in 2008 with Senator John McCain on the Republican ticket and Geraldine Ferraro who was our nation’s first vice presidential nominee in 1984 ran alongside Democratic nominee Walter Mondale.

Ferraro’s daughter, Donna Zaccaro, recently spoke on CBS News about Harris’ election saying, “Women have a seat at the table at the highest level of our government for the first time in history.”

While many rejoice in this victory for women and women of color, others like author and activist Bettina Love said in a recent article for The Guardian that, “representation is only representation: we need actual results,” of Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris. Love adds that Harris will not get a honeymoon stage because she is a Black woman living in a racist and sexist country that is always tougher on women. Love says she will face scrutiny from the opposition like never before and must be ready to put in the work and move fast.

No matter where you stand on your feelings regarding Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, everyone can agree that her election to the second highest seat in the land is a historic and triumphant moment for women and women of color around our nation and around the world.