Kamala Harris’ historic campaign builds on breakthroughs by other Black women

This is an adapted excerpt from the July 29 episode of “The Beat.”

It was a whirlwind first week for Vice President Kamala Harris’ historic presidential campaign. The Guardian described her candidacy as a generational shift in U.S. politics. 

Harris, of course, is no stranger to breaking barriers — she’s serving as the first woman vice president in our country’s history — but she’s drawn from a range of trailblazers who laid the groundwork for this moment. 

Geraldine Ferraro, a Democrat, became the first female vice presidential candidate on a major U.S. party ticket in 1984. There’s also former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican Party’s first female candidate for vice president.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton shattered the glass ceiling when she won the Democratic presidential nomination.

Shirley Chisholm was both the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first to run for president. Chisholm pushed her party, which has since come to rely heavily on Black voters, to take Black leadership seriously.

Before ascending to the highest echelon of the Democratic Party, Harris was the only Black woman in the Senate. There was only one Black female senator who served before her.

That senator was Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, sworn into the Senate in 1993. Moseley Braun, who ran on a platform of women’s and civil rights, immediately challenged the status quo in Washington. In her first year in office, she defiantly took to the Senate floor to protest the renewal of a congressional patent for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, whose insignia featured the Confederate flag.

“I’ve got to tell you, this vote is about race. It is about racial symbolism. … It is about our racial past and the single most painful episode in American history,” Moseley Braun told her colleagues. 

Moseley Braun also challenged sexism in the Senate. She was among the first to buck the unofficial ban on women wearing pants on the Senate floor. Moseley Braun wore them repeatedly until the rule was changed. The feminist publication Ms. described that action as a “rebellion” and “a seismographic event.”

On Monday’s episode of “The Beat,” I spoke with the former senator about Harris’ historic candidacy. Moseley Braun told me she was “over the moon” and “strongly supporting” the vice president.

She also pledged to do everything in her power to help Harris make history yet again:

“We have 98 more days to the election itself. We all have to show up and be there for her, take advantage and not let this enthusiasm dwindle. People have short memories sometimes. But if we can keep the drumbeat going, we can have our first woman president.” 

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Ari Melber

Ari Melber is chief legal correspondent for MSNBC and host of “The Beat with Ari Melber,” which airs nightly at 6 p.m. ET on MSNBC. Before joining MSNBC, Melber practiced First Amendment law and served as a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate. He received a J.D. from Cornell Law School and is a member of the New York Bar.

Allison Detzel contributed.