Dan Morain | Making History with Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris is going toe-to-toe with Donald Trump in a high-stakes race for the presidency. Though she has served as vice president for four years, many Americans don’t know a lot about her. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we know her from her days as San Francisco district attorney and then California attorney general and senator. But perhaps no observer knows her as well as journalist Dan Morain, whose biography of Harris—Kamala’s Way—gives insight into her history in the Bay Area. And Morain returns to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to talk about Harris on the cusp of making history on the national stage.

There’s very little that’s conventional about Kamala Harris, and yet her personal story also represents many Americans. She grew up the eldest daughter of a single mother, a no-nonsense cancer researcher who emigrated from India at the age of 19 in search of a better education. She and her husband, an accomplished economist from Jamaica, split up when Kamala was only five. The Kamala Harris the public knows today is tough, smart, quick-witted, and demanding. She’s a prosecutor—her one-liners are legendary—but she’s more reticent when it comes to sharing much about herself, even in her memoirs. Fortunately, former Los Angeles Times reporter Dan Morain has been there from the start.

Join us in-person in San Francisco or online to learn more about the person who might well be America’s first female president, its first southeast Asian president, and its second Black president.

Notes

This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

Morain photo by Hector Amezcua; Harris photo by Lorie Shaull.

September 4, 2024

Speakers

Dan Morain
Former Reporter, Los Angeles Times; Former Editor, Sacramento Bee; Author, Kamala's Way: An American Life; X @DanielMorain

In Conversation with Rachael Myrow

Senior Editor, KQED’s Silicon Valley News Desk; X @rachaelmyrow

In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, CCWA reaches it's wide-ranging audiences through these Social media platforms

[lindapirlot]

And I hope you're going to interview someone about how JD Vance wouldn't be where he is without the help of gay billionaire Peter Thiel.

[dustingaersmith]

Keep in mind Kamala Harris was a DA and put many serious criminals away for a long time…her right to privacy is essential!
Your arrogance is mind numbing to suggest any impropriety or secrecy on her part in terms of interviews, solicitations, etc. Her credibility is impeccable and that is observed by the writers unauthorized biography, and appreciated .

[sailorr]

Character? Character!? Are we really talking about Character??
That is not a sincere nor ingenuous form of the question in this environment.
If a hypothetical voter cares about “character…” …

[marland]

Silicon valley money vs new york billionaire investment money, ?? Hmmm.

[marland]

Ahhcho! Allergy to bull. I detect undertones of pooh pooh.
I guess she was kind of business focussed rather than popularity starlet, look at me, spotlight searching?

[youtubecensors]

She's historic in that she's the first entirely unelected candidate: zero votes received on both occasions. She's also historic due to her installation being the result of an unprecedented coup to depose an elected candidate. Additionally, her handling of our national border (one of only two duties tasked to the executive branch in the US Constitution) has created a never before seen soaring of human trafficking, cartel power, and fentanyl overdoses as well as flooding the US with so many unvetted people that it would be our seventh largest state. No wonder the press has to run her campaign for her.