One of the strongest moments during Kamala Harris' last campaign for president was when she described this experience from her childhood:
"There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me."
Carole Porter, a childhood friend of Harris, says she was the "other little girl on the bus." Porter spoke with All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro to share the childhood experiences that shaped Harris.
"We really lived in a very multicultural community that was really beautiful — very working-class to lower-working-class," Porter says. "[Harris] was confident, and she was nice."
Porter's family lived a few doors down from the house in the redlined Berkeley, Calif. neighborhood where young Kamala lived with her little sister, Maya, and their mother, Shyamala.
"The Shyamala that I remember as a child, she had an air of confidence about her. She had an air of just integrity and strength. When you saw Shyamala, you said, 'Hello, Mrs. Harris.'"
The Harris family lived in the apartment above Shelton's Daycare, where Harris and Porter would spend a lot of time together.
"Mrs. Shelton was a matriarch of our neighborhood," Porter says. Harris has described Regina Shelton as a second mother.
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Harris' biracial identity.
Porter says Harris grew up proud of her Indian heritage — and she was eager to share it with Porter.
"One very poignant memory I have is...we were waiting for the bus, and Kamala wanted me to come with her to her place. And she told me to look up, and her grandparents were in the window. And she wanted me to wave at her grandparents."
Kamala's father, Donald Harris, is Jamaican American. And while Harris has described her mother as the more formative parent in her life, Porter, who is also half Black, says the two of them understood what it meant to be seen as Black women in America at a young age.
"We are Black people in America because of the false construction of race to divide people," she says. "In America, we're considered Black women, and that's how our mothers raised us, because that's what they knew we would be seen as."
Porter says Regina Shelton played a crucial role in this part of Harris' life.
"Kamala... went to church with Mrs. Shelton. And she had an opportunity to be around Black people and Indian people."
From Berkeley to Washington.
Porter says Harris' choice to pursue a career as a prosecutor never surprised her. She recalls her father explaining the significance of Harris' job to her:
"You don't have a lot of Black people, and especially women, who go into the prosecutorial side of law," he told her. "And that's where the decisions are made. That's where the systems and the structures are created."
Shyamala Harris and Regina Shelton are no longer alive, but Porter says they would be proud of Kamala.
"They were really strong, strong women who gave everything," she says. "So for them to see this — which I'm sure they are in their heavenly space — it's everything."
Even if Harris doesn't win the presidency, Porter says the moment is still significant:
"It's about Kamala having the opportunity to share some really strong, deeply rooted, important values and beliefs with other people that she was raised with — that we were raised with — in this little redlined neighborhood in Berkeley, California. Who knew?"
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