For Harris, memories of mother guide bid for vice president

NEW YORK — Speaking from the Senate floor for the first time, Kamala Harris expressed gratitude for a woman on whose shoulders she said she stood. Sophie Maxwell, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said Harris wasn’t choosing to eschew activism but rather to incorporate it into a life in law: “Those two things go hand in hand.” In college, at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Shelley Young Thompkins recalls a classmate who was certain of what she wanted to do in life, who was serious about her studies and who put off the fun of joining a sorority until her final year even as she made time for sit-ins and protests. “When she was alive she was a force, and since she’s passed away she’s still a force.” Dew Steele remembers when she finally met Gopalan Harris at a campaign event. It immediately struck her: “Oh, this is where Kamala gets it from.” As much as mother and daughter shared, Gopalan Harris believed the world would see them differently. Remembering her brush with the senator’s mother, Simon said, “If I got that from Shyamala just in that one moment, can you imagine the many jewels Kamala got from her growing up?” It’s an influence that far outweighed that of Harris’ father.