The 2020 general elections are less than three months away and there’s no turning back. For the next 75 days, as the country approaches November 3, our TV screens and social media feeds will turn into a political vacuum.
The Democratic National Convention is currently taking place virtually and former vice president Joe Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris have been named the Democratic nominees for president and vice president, respectively. On Wednesday night, in historic fashion, Harris accepted the party’s nomination, making her the first Black woman to reach this feat.
To celebrate her historic appointment Harris’s niece Meena Harris and poet Cleo Wade, two leading activists, have designed a graphic tee with the words: “The First But Not The Last” written on the front. It’s joined by a photo of a younger Kamala Harris.
“One of the many things I admire about Kamala is that she feels a responsibility to help women everywhere succeed and have their dreams,” Wade tells ESSENCE in a statement.
Harris has often said on the campaign trail and in interviews that her mother instilled in her an ethos to help other women of color win. “You may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last,” Shyamala Gopalan would tell her daughters. Now it seems her granddaughter Meena, Harris’s niece, has dipped into her family’s photo archives to produce a rare image of a younger Kamala for the design.
“I am so grateful to Meena for creating this with me and giving us access to her precious family photos. I love this shirt. I feel so lucky that my daughter gets to grow up in a world with leaders like Kamala showing her what is possible,” she concluded.
The graphic t-shirt is priced at $35 and available here.