Kamala Harris' roots are planted in a history of Black activism

In 1925, a little-known female activist at the center of the Pan-African movement made a hopeful prediction:

“We would not be surprised if, within the next 10 years, a woman graces the White House in Washington, D.C.,” Amy Jacques Garvey wrote in an editorial for the Negro World, the newspaper of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. “Be not discouraged, [B]lack women of the world, but push forward, regardless of the lack of appreciation shown you. A race must be saved, a country must be redeemed."

Amy Jacques Garvey was an immigrant. Born in Jamaica in 1896, she moved to the U.S. in 1917. In 1922, she married Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey, a race activist.

Amy Jacques Garvey, however, was a leader in her own right.

The arguments Garvey made in her editorial could have been made in response to the challenges Vice President Kamala Harris faced in her uphill battle to win the White House:

“New York has a woman Secretary of State," Garvey wrote in the editorial, according to the book "Daughters of Africa." "Two states had women governors nearly a century ago."

Since Garvey’s bold vision, several Black women have knocked on the White House doors:

• Shirley Chisholm was the first Black person and woman to compete for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1972.
  
• Psychologist Lenora Fulani was the first Black woman to have her name on every state ballot in 1988.
  
• Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, ran for president in 2004.

While Harris chose not to put race at the center of her whirlwind campaign, she did not ignore it.

From bougie pearls to Converse gym shoes, her style resonated with Black women from all walks of life, especially those in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the oldest Greek-letter organization established by Black women.

As was often said during former President Barack Obama’s campaign to become the country's first Black person elected to the Oval Office, there is no stopping the march of history.

Some things are ordained.

For instance, Obama’s ascent from a little-known state senator to a keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention propelled him into the White House.

But when Harris dropped out of the crowded field of candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, it looked like her political ascent was over.

Harris’ appeal to the masses grew, however, as President Joe Biden’s favorability numbers sank.

Harris plans to spend election night at Howard University, an historically black university and her alma mater. It sends a powerful message.

Her roots are planted in the rich history of Black activism.

As with any election, one side will celebrate a hard-fought victory and the other will feel the sting of a painful loss.

Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks, the late national poet laureate and first Black person awarded a Pulitzer Prize, has perfect words for this moment in an excerpt of her poem, "To Black Women":

Mary Mitchell recently retired and writes an occasional column for the Chicago Sun-Times.