The Inspirational Father of Kamala Harris

News Americas, New York, NY, 23 August 2024: During her speech on the final day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, where she formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at length about her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. However, the mention of her father was brief, without mentioning his name or identity.

“In the park, my mother would say, ‘Stay close.’ But my father would say, smiling, ‘Run, Kamala, run. Don’t be afraid. Don’t let anything stop you.’ “From my early years, he taught me to be fearless,” she said.

This was her size, and notably, her father was absent from the convention, despite being her only living parent. According to Harris’ 2019 memoir, although her parents divorced when she was in elementary school, her father remained involved, watching his daughters on weekends and during the summer.

So who is Kamala Harris’ father, Donald J. Harris?

Donald Jasper Harris was born on August 23, 1938, in Brown’s Town, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald Jasper Harris is the son of Oscar Joseph Harris and Beryl Christie Harris (née Finegan). His paternal grandmother, Christiana Brown, shared with him that their family was descended from Irish plantation owner Hamilton Brown, who founded the local Anglican church where she is buried. Raised in the Anglican faith, Harris was baptized, confirmed and served as an assistant.

About Brown’s Town

Brown’s Town is located northwest of St Ann in the Dry Harbor Mountains. The town is about 8 miles from the north coast of Jamaica. The town was founded by Hamilton Brown who is buried in the local Anglican church. He owned much of the land in the area including the Minard Estate. Surrounding properties were Huntley, New Hope, Orange Valley, Belleair and Retreat.

Brown’s town became important as a market center in the mid-19th century after the abolition of slavery. Several free villages had been established around the city, including Aberdeen, Buxton, Egypt, Goshen, Liberty Valley, Sturge Town and Trysee. The market provided an outlet for the peasants’ produce, which attracted buyers from other areas of the island. The influx of customers to the Friday and Saturday markets led to extensive commercial development. The big market held on Christmas Eve was particularly well supported.

The town of Brown is considered the educational capital of St. Ann. Brown’s Town Community College, located in the city, offers pre-tertiary and tertiary courses from the University of Technology, Jamaica and the University of the West Indies. It was formerly the site of the Huntley Hotel, followed by the Lady Servite Convent, which operated a preparatory school and a girls’ high school. There are three high schools in Brown’s Town: Brown’s Town High School, St. Hilda’s Diocesan High School for Girls and York Castle High School. It also contains the St. Christopher’s for the Deaf, the only institution for the hearing impaired outside of Kingston.

In Brown’s Town there is a health center and a public health service, as well as private medical services. St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital and Alexandria Hospital also serve the city. Other famous people from Brown’s Town include DK Duncan, dental surgeon and former government minister, and Gloria Escoffery, painter, poet and art critic active in the 1940s and 1950s.

Harris graduated from Titchfield High School and later attended the University College of the West Indies. In 1960, he moved to London to obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of London. He then migrated to the US to pursue a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, where he completed his dissertation in 1966 under the supervision of renowned econometrician Daniel McFadden.

During his time at Berkeley, Donald Harris met Shyamala Gopalan, a student of Indian origin, and the two married in 1963. They had two daughters, Kamala and Maya, but divorced eight years later. Despite a difficult custody battle, Donald Harris remained devoted to his daughters.

The original relationship between father and daughter “came to an abrupt end in 1972,” Harris wrote in a 2019 article about the family’s Jamaican heritage.

“After a difficult custody battle in Oakland, California family court,” he said, the judge settled based on the “false assumption that fathers can’t parent.”

However, he said: “I persevered, never giving up on my love for my children or abdicating my responsibilities as their father.”

A scholarly publication by Harris published in 1978 – Capital Accumulation and the Distribution of Income – was dedicated to Kamala and the young Maya.

Kamala Harris’ granddaughter Meena has hinted at more complexities. And Shyamala’s brother, Gopalan Balachandran, told the Times that his sister was so angry after the split that she refused to even speak to Donald Harris.

A distinguished academic career

Donald Harris’ academic career began as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (1966-67) and at Northwestern University (1967-68). He became an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1968. In 1972, he joined Stanford University as a professor of economics, becoming the first black scholar to hold tenure in Stanford’s Department of Economics. Harris has also been a visiting professor at Yale University and the University of Cambridge, among others, and has served on the editorial boards of several prestigious journals.

Throughout his career, Harris has focused on issues of economic inequality, arguing that uneven development is an inherent feature of market economies. His research has drawn on the works of economists such as Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter, and he is recognized as a prominent critic of mainstream economic theory.

Harris has also been actively involved in Jamaica’s economic development, advising successive governments and contributing to major policy frameworks, including the National Industrial Policy (1996) and the Growth Promotion Strategy (2011).

Awards and Recognition

Professor Harris has received numerous accolades during his career, including the Order of Merit from Jamaica in 2021. He has also been a Fulbright Scholar and held fellowships at institutions such as Yale University and the University of Cambridge.

Sharing

Despite his many accomplishments, Donald Harris has remained largely absent from the political life of his daughter Kamala Harris. He last publicly commented on her career in 2019, criticizing a remark she made about using marijuana during a radio interview. “Half of my family is from Jamaica. are you kidding me?” Kamala had said, prompting her father to respond, saying their Jamaican heritage should not be associated with the “misleading stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker.”

In one of the few times Kamala Harris has spoken publicly about her father, she described him as “a good guy” but admitted they are not close.

Donald Harris, now a naturalized US citizen, continues to live a quiet life as a professor emeritus, watching from a distance as his daughter makes history again.