Maya harris education8/8/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Harris started the busing program as a kindergartener in 1969, Berkeley school officials confirmed. (Courtesy of Kamala Harris)Ī member of the second class to go into the program, Harris took the bus every day from her mother’s yellow duplex on Bancroft Way in the more diverse, less affluent flats of northwest Berkeley up to Thousand Oaks elementary in a wealthier and whiter neighborhood at the edge of the hills. Her parents - immigrants from India and Jamaica - shaped the senator’s life, and their story has become a key part of her campaign message. Kamala Harris, left, with her younger sister Maya and mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris. The future presidential candidate and California Sen. who was assassinated that year - and other civil rights leaders. The program was one of the first of its kind in the country and was praised by Martin Luther King, Jr. Black students would be bused up to the white schools in the hills during kindergarten through third grade, and white students went down to schools in the flatlands for grades 4 through 6. “I still remember it so clearly - I can still hear the sound of the bus,” she said.īerkeley Unified School District started voluntarily busing its elementary students on a widespread level in 1968, under the direction of a progressive superintendent, Neil Sullivan. Getting to go to Cragmont Elementary was a transformative opportunity, she said, with the times tables she learned there setting her on the path to becoming an engineer. Harris’ campaign took quick advantage of the attention, blasting images of a young Harris across social media and adding a $29.99 “That Little Girl Was Me” T-shirt with her childhood photo to the campaign merchandise store.Īlkebulan said the Facebook group for her Berkeley class was blowing up Thursday night with former students amazed at Harris’ performance, and she sent Harris an online contribution right after the debate. Harris’ attack took aim at a key constituency she and Biden are both fighting for support among, older African-American voters, and seemed likely to deflate the long-standing criticism of her as too cautious. The five-minute exchange appeared to be the most significant of the 2020 campaign so far, with commentators across cable news and social media declaring Harris a runaway debate winner and calling into question Biden’s position atop more than two dozens Democratic hopefuls. ![]() (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Drew Angerer/Getty Images Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden speak during the Democratic debate. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public school and she was bused to school every day,” Harris continued, with the debate hall pin-drop silent. Just a few years after Harris got on her first school bus, Biden was arguing against busing, calling the concept “asinine” and fighting efforts in the Senate to impose it around the country. Elizabeth Warren into third place and was less than a percentage point behind Sen. The post-debate poll still had Biden, who is in the Bay Area for private fundraisers this weekend, leading the field. “It gave me such joy and pride that I still have confidence in our country.”Ī FiveThirtyEight and Morning Consult poll conducted before and after the two nights of debates showed Harris rising from 7.9 percent to 16.6 percent and Biden falling from 41.5 percent to 31.5 percent. “She was spot-on,” said Doris Alkebulan, 58, who was among the first black students bused to white schools during the city’s 1967 pilot program. The moment resonated especially deeply with former Berkeley students who, like Harris, had experienced busing and were watching Thursday night. Her show-stopping confrontation with frontrunner Joe Biden in Thursday night’s debate over his history of opposing busing programs instantly reshaped the race for the Democratic nomination. Now, Harris has turned that experience into a breakout moment for her presidential campaign. The yellow bus took her up from her home in the flatlands to Thousand Oaks Elementary at the base of the hills, linking neighborhoods that were cleaved by race and income. BERKELEY - When Kamala Harris got on a Berkeley school bus for the first time five decades ago, she was taking part in one of the nation’s earliest efforts to use busing to integrate public schools. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |