Vice President Harris: A new chapter opens in US politics
The IndependentSign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Kamala Harris will become the first female vice president — and the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to hold the role. “In many folks' lifetimes, we experienced a segregated United States," said Lateefah Simon, a civil rights advocate and longtime Harris friend and mentee. Harris, 56, moves into the vice presidency just four years after she first went to Washington as a senator from California where she'd previously served as attorney general and as San Francisco's district attorney. She'll use two Bibles, one that belonged to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the late civil rights icon whom Harris often cites as inspiration, and Regina Shelton, a longtime family friend who helped raise Harris during her childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area.