Harris returns to alma mater Howard University on election night
Kamala Harris will spend election night at Howard University in Washington, D.C., her alma mater and a historically Black institution. The Democratic presidential nominee graduated from Howard in 1986 with a degree in political science and economics.
Harris has remained closely connected to the university, often describing her four years there as among the most pivotal in her life. Howard’s president, Ben Vinson III, noted that this marks the first time in modern history that a college campus will host a presidential election watch party.
Vinson expressed pride in having the first woman of color to serve as vice president as an alumna of the university. “We are also honored that she has chosen Howard as the place to potentially make history again,” he said.
In recognition of the occasion, classes were canceled on Tuesday to ensure students had the best opportunity to vote. Supporters of Harris gathered outside the school ahead of the watch party.
One such supporter was Cheryl Taylor, a Howard alum who had invited Harris to join Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation’s first Black sorority, founded at Howard in 1908. The network of members from AKA and other Black sororities has been a significant force behind Harris’s presidential campaigns, including in 2019.
Ms. Taylor, who met Harris as a freshman, recalled the future vice president as a standout leader even at the age of 19. “She was amazing. Beautiful, smart, a good person,” Taylor shared.
Taylor expressed her pride in Harris’s choice to hold the watch party at Howard, viewing it as an acknowledgment of the school’s pivotal role in Harris’s journey and its embodiment of “Black excellence.” She also dismissed attacks on Harris’s racial identity, including criticisms from Donald Trump, who had questioned her Blackness.
“We don’t question that here,” she said.
“To have one of our fellow Howardites to ascend to this level, and also to be a woman… it’s overwhelming,” she added. “I’m just so happy to be here tonight.”
Waiting with her friends to get inside was first-time voter and first-year student Kendall Claytor, who described Harris as a role model.
“As a black woman, I look up to her,” she said.
“You know, knowing that she came from the same place as she slept in the same dorms that I slept in, she went to the same school, same classes and she’s able to make it this far. I think speaks volumes to us as students.”
William Ward, 65, was playing music from the back of his bicycle for the crowd.
“I’m going to be 66 in December. I want to see history. I’ve seen the Obamas go in, which is history. And now I’m going to see a female go in.”
Founded in 1867 and nicknamed The Mecca, Howard is one of the largest, and most academically rigorous, historically black universities in the country.
It produces more black PhD recipients than any other university in the country and currently serves about 11,000 students.
Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael and actor Chadwick Boseman are also among its alumni.
In her memoir The Truths We Hold, Harris described it as a place “you could come as you were and leave as the person you aspired to be”.
