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    • Harris returns to her childhood haunts to make her final presentation
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    Harris returns to her childhood haunts to make her final presentation

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    MADISON, Wis. – Vice President Kamala Harris returned to familiar ground in the latter part of her presidential campaign.

    As she strives to preserve personal liberties and protect democracy, she gave her presentation Wednesday night just a few miles from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where her progressive parents participated in various civil rights causes in the late 1960s. She spoke at the nearly 10,000-seat Alliant Energy Center here to a mostly female crowd.

    Harris often talked about spending part of her childhood (ages 3 to 5) in a 2-bedroom house overlooking Lake Mendota. The house also happens to be in a pivot swing state.

    Her father, Donald Harris, a Jamaican-American economics professor, publicly supported black students in 1969 as they aimed to create a Black Studies department. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, an Indian-American, worked as a cancer researcher at the university.

    “I grew up with a childhood perspective on the civil rights movement, surrounded by adults who were committed to service and community involvement,” she said in a 2016 Facebook post. young age to want to be a lawyer and fight for justice for the voiceless.”

    Although aligned to social and political causes, Harris’ parents’ marriage did not last. They divorced in the early 1970s. Her mother, who raised Harris, went to work as a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and her father joined nearby Stanford University as a professor.

    On the tree-lined street in the Spring Harbor neighborhood where he grew up, signs supporting Harris are everywhere.

    John Wiencek, who was taking a walk in the neighborhood Wednesday morning, said he already voted for Harris.

    The 68-year-old dentist, who considers himself an independent, had only voted Republican until the former president. Donald Trump first became the Republican nominee in 2016.

    He voted for Democratic presidential candidates in 2016, 2020 and 2024 as a sign of his displeasure with Trump. “I think America is great and it’s never been great as far as I’m concerned,” he said, alluding to “Make America Great Again.”

    As for the neighborhood, he would describe it as one where “50 percent of the residents have PhDs and tend to be liberal.”

    Early supporter of African American studies

    At the university’s Department of African American Studies, Professor Emerita Freida High Wasikhongo Tesfagiogris, who visited the department on Wednesday, said he was grateful for Donald Harris’s support for black students at a crucial time in history.

    High, who was a graduate student in 1969, was on the steering committee charged with forming a department of “African American” studies.

    “There were teachers who did not want black studies. They said there was no need for African-American studies,” she said. “So supporting him was revolutionary at the time.”

    Family connections: Her Mother’s Daughter: What Shyamala Gopalan’s Legacy Means to Kamala Harris

    High said it was “fantastic to have a faculty member who was on the right side whose daughter is now vice president.”

    That Harris was influenced by her parents’ progressive outlook is evident in her campaign, she said.

    “It’s really about humanity. And that’s what African American studies is all about,” High said. “It’s about humanity, understanding humanity and making sure everyone’s story is told.”

    Waiting for their first presidential election

    On campus, young people were looking forward to the Harris rally on Wednesday afternoon. USA TODAY spoke with four Harris supporters who are preparing to vote in their first presidential election.

    Having a female candidate to vote for who cares about reproductive rights and unifying the country is energizing, they said.

    Violet Bluestein, 21, a college senior, was preparing to attend her second Harris rally in September.

    She recalled a moment from that earlier rally that moved her:

    “She was a young black woman who was carried on her father’s shoulders,” the Vermont native said. “And that made me so emotional. To be able to see yourself in politics is so amazing.”

    Bluestein said he hopes a Harris presidency will bring the country back to a place of “humanity, kindness and unity.”

    “I just want a country I can be proud of again,” she said.

    Elizabeth Cahill, 20, a junior studying sociology and genetics, grew up just outside of Chicago.

    “I think a lot of people just see her as an empowering person and someone who stands up for herself and someone who stands up for people who don’t look like her,” she said. “I think it’s really nice that it represents all demographics.”

    She said Harris’ candidacy “seems like a long time coming” and hopes she will set a precedent for other female politicians to run for office — and win.

    Margaret Murphy-Weise, 21, who grew up in San Francisco, said she was happy to vote in a crucial state.

    Harris, she said, has a “maternal instinct” and does a good job of leaning into her feminine side — contrasting her approach with Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential bid.

    “I think what makes a strong woman is when you can have both the feminine side and at the same time be in strong, powerful positions,” she said. “That makes her relatable.”

    Murphy-Weise, a political science major and Chinese double major, said she is also glad, as an Asian-American, that a black woman is running for the highest office in the land.

    “To see someone representing me is so important and cool,” she said.

    Marley Miller, 21, a political science and international relations double major from Wayland, Mass., agreed, saying she found Harris’ recognition of women and women’s rights appealing.

    “Having a black woman become president of the United States would be a monumental achievement for American democracy, despite all of our nation’s shortcomings and all of our persistent systemic inequalities,” the senior said.

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