The Inspirational Father of Kamala Harris

News Americas, New York, NY, August 23, 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 extensively spoke about her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. However, her mention of her father was brief, with no reference to his name or identity.

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

That was the extent of it, 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, seeing 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 Browns’ 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 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 acolyte.

About Brown’s Town

Brown’s Town is located in northwest St Ann in the Dry Harbour Mountains. The town is about 8 miiles from Jamaica’s north coast 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 Minard Estate. Surrounding estates were Huntley, New Hope, Orange Valley, Belleair, and Retreat.

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

Brown’s Town is considered the educational capital of St. Ann. Brown’s Town Community College, located in the town, 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 Servite Convent of the Assumption which operated a preparatory school and a high school for girls. There are three secondary 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 features St. Christopher School for the Deaf, the only institution for the hearing impaired outside of Kingston.

In Brown’s Town, there is a health centre and a public health service, as well as private medical services. The St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital and the Alexandria Hospital also serve the town. Other famous people from Brown’s Town include D.K. 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 earn a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of London. He then migrated to the U.S. to pursue a PhD 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, an Indian-born student, 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 committed to his daughters.

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

“After a hard-fought custody battle in the family court of Oakland, California,” he said, the judge imposed a settlement based on “the false assumption that fathers cannot handle parenting.”

Nevertheless, he said, “I persisted, never giving up on my love for my children or reneging on my responsibilities as their father.”

A scholarly tome Harris published in 1978 – Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution – was dedicated to young Kamala and Maya.

Kamala Harris’s niece Meena has hinted at more complexities. And Shyamala’s brother, Gopalan Balachandran, told the Times that his sister was so angry after the split she refused even to talk 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 receive tenure in Stanford’s Department of Economics. Harris has also been a visiting professor at Yale University and Cambridge University, among others, and 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 Inducement Strategy (2011).

Awards and Recognition

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

The Divide

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

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

Donald Harris, now a naturalized U.S. citizen, continues to lead a quiet life as an emeritus professor, watching from a distance as his daughter makes history yet again.