Harris, only the fourth woman in history to be nominated for a presidential ticket, shared a virtual stage – one hundred years and one day after the ratification of the 19th amendment that guaranteed the women – with Hillary Clinton, the first woman nominated by a major party for the presidency, and Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker and highest ranking woman in American political history. After graduating from Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington DC, Harris pursued a career in criminal justice. In 2003, she was elected district attorney of San Francisco and the attorney general of California before becoming only the second Black woman to serve in the Senate. It is this chapter of her career that Harris struggled to reconcile during her own presidential campaign, when confronted by progressives over her record as a prosecutor. But on Wednesday, Democrats mostly celebrated her historic ascensions. Harris’s presence on stage Wednesday was not preordained. During the first Democratic primary debate last year, Harris confronted Biden over his past opposition to school bussing policies and his working relationship with segregationist senators. The attack wounded Biden, who had centered his campaign around the promise to restore the soul of the nation. Loading video Billie Eilish at DNC: 'Trump is destroying our country and everything we care about' – video After her own presidential campaign fizzled and she dropped out of the race last year, Harris returned to the Senate, where she found her voice in the midst of nationwide protests over racial injustice. She joined protesters on the street and delivered a deeply personal speech on the Senate floor about being Black in America. She sponsored police reform legislation and championed a bill to make lynching a federal crime.
