If Biden Wins Kamala Harris Will Be Second Caribbean American VP

by Sandra Bernard-Bastien

SOUTH FLORIDA – Prior to the announcement of Kamala Harris as presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee, Joe Biden’s running mate, two Caribbean Americans were in the running to be selected – Susan Rice whose maternal grandparents were Jamaican immigrants, and Kamala Harris, the daughter of Jamaican Donald Harris, economics professor emeritus at Stanford University.

If the Democrats win the election, a Caribbean American will become Vice President of the United States …..for the second time.

The first was George M. Dallas whose father Alexander Dallas, the 6^th Secretary of the Treasury, was born in Jamaica on June 21^st 1759.

Alexander’s son, George, was born on July 10^th 1792 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He became the 11^th Vice President of the United States on November 4^th 1844.

At the May 1844 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, the Democratic ticket went to the team of James K. Polk for president and Silas Wright for vice president. Wright, however, declined, and was replaced by Dallas, who was not even at the Convention. When Polk was elected President on November 4^th 1845, George Dallas filled the post of 11^th Vice President of the United States. He remained in office until March 4^th 1849. He died in Philadelphia of a heart attack on December 31^st 1864. Several counties and towns were named in his honor, the best known being Dallas, Texas.

On January 21^st 2019 Senator Kamala Harris declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election. After an early popularity in the polls, she ended her campaign on December 3^rd 2019, citing a shortage of funds.

Earlier in her career she was the State of California’s Attorney General from 2011 to 2016. She was the first female and first black Attorney General in California. She was elected as a US Senator from California in 2016, the second black woman to sit in the Senate, the first being Carol Moseley Braun who sat from 1993 to 1999.

Coincidentally Braun was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2004 US presidential election. Sen. Harris is also the first Caribbean American senator in over 100 years. Stephen Russell Mallory II was the last in 1907.

The father of Stephen Russell Mallory II, after whom he was named, was also a senator. Stephen Russell Mallory I was born in Trinidad in 1812.

The history of the development of the United States is replete with Caribbean American players, both black and white, at the highest level. These are featured in the 2016 book, Caribbean American Heritage: A History of High Achievers, co-authored by this article’s author and her husband, Elliot Bastien.

Caribbean Americans have always contributed to the development of this country, starting from Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), one of the founding fathers.

He was born in Nevis, part of the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts & Nevis, and grew up in St. Croix, another Caribbean island, which he left when he was 17 years old. Jamaican-born Alexander Dallas (1759-1817) was 6^th Secretary of the US Treasury.

In even earlier times Abraham Markoe (1727-1896), the founder of the Philadelphia Light Horse escorted George Washington from New Jersey to New York City in 1775, when the first Continental Congress appointed Washington Commander-in-Chief

Charles Cotesworthy (CC) Pinckney (1746-1825), whose mother Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793) was born and grew up in Antigua, was a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

Joseph Haine Rainey (1832-1887), whose mother was descended from slaves brought from Haiti, in 1870 became the first black person elected to Congress. On April 29^th, 1874 he served as Speaker pro tempore  of the US House of representatives.

In more modern times quite a lot more is known about Caribbean American figures  such as:

• Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005), the daughter of immigrant parents from Barbados and Guyana, who in 1968 became the first black woman elected to Congress;
• Clifford Alexander, 13^th US Secretary of the Army, whose father was Jamaican;
• Colin Powell, 65^th Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,  who is the son of Jamaican immigrants;
• Eric Holder, 82^nd US Attorney General, whose grandparents were from Barbados;
• Susan Rice, 24^th National Security Advisor, whose maternal grandparents were from Jamaica; and
• Thomas Perez, 26^th  US Secretary of Labour and Chair of the Democratic National Committee, whose parents were first generation immigrants from the Dominican Republic

This latest in a long line of Caribbean American achievers, Senator Kamala Harris, if she becomes Vice President, will be a mere heartbeat away from the highest office in the United States.

It may be fitting to end with some lines about the immigrant contribution taken from our book, Caribbean American Heritage: A History of High Achievers.

“According to Matt Windman, amNewYork theatre critic, in his August 6^th 2015 review of Hamilton The Musical, Hamilton is portrayed  ‘as an upstart immigrant unafraid to speak his mind or stand up for his principles.’ It does not escape the notice of this reviewer that the show’s creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, a first generation Puerto Rican immigrant, is celebrating the immigrant experience.

Marilyn Stasio in her February 17^th 2015 Variety review in commenting on the lyrics of one of the songs:

The ten-dollar founding father

Without

A father

Got a lot farther by working a lot harder

By being a lot smarter

By being a self-starter

says it “is a succinct description of the born-to-succeed immigrants who ever made it to these shores.”