When 18 year-old Kamala Harris arrived at Howard University in 1982, she was taken in by the historically Black campus’s vibrant social activism. By the time she graduated, Harris had embraced the value of shaping political decisions from the inside. nyti.ms/3drbAzp
As a campus leader and member of the Howard debate team, Kamala Harris had a reputation for academic intensity and a sense of style to match — neatly pressed slacks, dress shoes and a “Snatch Back” haircut that was the rage in the early 1980s. nyti.ms/3drbAzp 
Friends say Kamala Harris was popular and comfortable in her own skin at Howard, which was the hub of Washington, DC’s Black political elite in the 1980s. “We were cute and free and independent in the big city,” one of Harris’s classmates said. nyti.ms/3drbAzp
Kamala Harris’s political activity shifted from campus activism to participating in government as she and other children of the Civil Rights era who benefitted from school desegregation sought to take on new issues, like apartheid and policing. nyti.ms/3drbAzp
Sen. Kamala Harris has been an active member of the Howard alumni community, delivering the school’s commencement address in 2017 and occasionally working from an office on the Washington, DC, campus during the 2020 campaign. nyti.ms/3drbAzp
Read how Kamala Harris’s time at Howard University in the 1980s shaped her political worldview and helped her become a prosecutor, lawmaker and groundbreaking vice-presidential candidate in this report from @AsteadWesley. nyti.ms/3drbAzp
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