LUSAKA, Zambia
United States Vice President, Kamala Harris, may have travelled halfway around the world to reach this corner of Africa, but she was welcomed as a “daughter of our own country” when she sat down with Zambia’s leader.
The visit, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema said, was “like a
homecoming.”
It was a reference to a
childhood trip to Zambia when Harris’
grandfather worked here, but she heard similar refrains throughout her
weeklong trip to Africa that ended Saturday.
In
Ghana, President Nana Akufo-Addo told Harris “you’re welcome home.” In
Tanzania, a sign in Swahili told Harris to “feel at home.”
The greetings were a
reflection of the enduring connections between the African diaspora in the
United States and Africans themselves, something that America’s first Black
vice president fostered during her trip. Although her historic status has led
to extreme
scrutiny and extraordinary expectations in Washington, it was a source
of excitement over the past week.
“She is the ambassador we need at the moment,” said Tracy Sharpley-Whiting, who chairs African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University. “That’s a joyous thing.”
Vice President Kamala Harris lays a wreath at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana |
Harris’ background did not
spare her from difficult conversations about U.S. foreign policy and she was
pressed in Africa about visas, private investment and funding to deal with
climate change. There’s also skepticism over whether the United States will
follow through with its commitments and over its attempts to rival
China’s own influence in Africa.
But at every stop, Harris was
warmly embraced.
“Kamala Harris! Kamala
Harris!” young girls shouted on the tarmac when she landed in Lusaka on Friday.
She approached them with her hand on her chest in gratitude. “The VP is here!
The VP is here!”
The last week produced none of the unfortunate viral moments that dogged Harris on previous foreign trips, such as when she laughed off a question about visiting the U.S. border with Mexico or when she said the U.S. had an “alliance with the Republic of North Korea.”
Instead, the trip to Africa
was largely overshadowed by a cascade of U.S. news, including a school
shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, and the indictment
of former President Donald Trump.
But anyone tuning in would
have seen Harris hanging out with actor Idris Elba and actor-singer Sheryl Lee
Ralph at a recording studio in Accra, Ghana’s capital, or collecting business
cards from young entrepreneurs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, or walking
through rows of peppers at a farm outside of Lusaka. Sometimes she felt
comfortable enough to discard her prepared remarks, a rarity for a politician
who sticks closely to the script in Washington.
Although Africa remains a poor
continent with almost half the population lacking
access to electricity, Harris’ itinerary was aimed at portraying it as
young, dynamic, innovative — and primed for American business opportunities,
particularly with leaders from the diaspora.
The most glamorous event was a
state banquet at the Ghanaian presidential palace known as the Jubilee House,
where Black American celebrities, business people and civil rights activists
gathered.
In her toast, Harris paid
tribute to attendees who “represent the glorious beauty of the African
diaspora” and she spoke about “our shared destiny.”
Akufo-Addo, the president,
honored Harris with a local touch.
“Since you were born on a
Tuesday, I’m sure you would not mind the Ghanaian name Abena, the Akan name for
all Tuesday born females, to your name,” he said.
Raising his glass, Akufo-Addo
toasted “the honorable Kamala Devi Abena Harris.”
Marc Morial, president of the
National Urban League, said there was a “festive and family” atmosphere to be
there with the first Black vice president in U.S. history.
“It’s a moment of pride,” he
said. “And it’s a moment of opportunity.”
The trip could be Harris’ last
foray overseas before the 2024 campaign begins in earnest. President Joe Biden
is expected to announce his reelection run, and Harris will be a prime target
for Republican attacks.Cape Coast Castle in Ghana
Some of that is the result of
Biden’s age — he would be 82 when starting a second term in 2025 — and Harris’
status a heartbeat away from the presidency.
But like President Barack
Obama before her, Harris has faced racism and questions when it comes to her
heritage.
Her father was born in
Jamaica, where most Black citizens trace their heritage to Africa through the
slave trade, making it likely that Harris’
own ancestors were enslaved.
Her mother was born in India,
and the vice president was raised in California, contributing to a
multicultural background that defies easy characterization. (It was her
mother’s Indian father who worked in Zambia decades ago, helping to settle
refugees in the newly independent African country.)
But Harris wrote in her book,
“The Truths We Hold,” that her mother was clear-eyed about what it meant to
raise two daughters in the United States. “She knew that her adopted homeland
would see Maya and me as black girls, and she was determined to make sure we
would grow into confident, proud black women,” Harris wrote.
Harris wrote that when she
arrived at Howard University in Washington, a predominantly Black institution
that has educated generations of Black political and cultural leaders, she
thought, “This is heaven.”
“There were hundreds of
people, and everyone looked like me,” Harris wrote. “The campus was a place
where you didn’t have to be confined to the box of another person’s choosing.”
Harris was San Francisco’s
district attorney while Obama was running for president, and she defended him
when his racial identity was questioned. He’s the son of a white American
mother and a Kenyan father, and he spent part of his youth in Indonesia.
She told the San Francisco Chronicle that Obama “is opening up what has been a limited perspective of who is an African American.”
“We are diverse and
multifaceted,” Harris said. “People are bombarded with stereotypical images and
so they are limited in their ability to imagine our capacity.”
Harris faced the same strain
of commentary during her own presidential campaign in 2020.
“I think they don’t understand
who Black people are. I’m not going to spend my time trying to educate people
about who Black people are,” she said in a radio interview at the time.
The relationship between the
African diaspora and Africans on the continent has been complicated by the
history of slavery. African Americans often aren’t sure of their roots because
their ancestors were kidnapped and traded. According to the vice president’s
office, Harris hasn’t traced her heritage back here, either.
Nevertheless, Sharpley-Whiting
said the bond to Africa remains strong for many Black Americans.
“They recognize it as the
place where their ancestors started, and they recognize the resilience of those
ancestors,” she said.
Harris
confronted that history when she visited Cape Coast Castle in Ghana,
one of dozens of forts in West Africa where enslaved Africans were imprisoned
and then loaded onto ships bound for the Americas. The Caribbean — including
Jamaica — was one of the destinations.
“I’m still processing a lot of
it,” she told reporters the following day. She lingered on the experiences of
pregnant women who were imprisoned there — their babies were taken from them
and the women were sent off across the ocean.
“The brutality, the inhumane
treatment of human beings is profound,” she said. “And the lasting trauma of
that cannot be denied.”
But she soon turned to another
topic when asked what she wanted Black Americans to take away from her trip to
Africa.
The message, she said, wasn’t
just about “how the diaspora came to be.”
It’s about “the resilience,
the strength, fortitude, the brilliance, the excellence.”
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