Kamala Harris's friend cried tears of joy when the U.S. election was called
Amelia Ashley-Ward says she's always believed 'God has something extra' for the new vice-president elect
Amelia Ashley-Ward watched through tears as her friend Kamala Harris delivered her victory speech on Saturday.
Harris made history this weekend when she became the first Black person and the first woman to be elected vice-president of the United States.
Ashley-Ward, publisher of the Black community newspaper the Sun-Reporter, has been friends with the vice-president elect since Harris was a candidate for San Francisco district attorney, a position she held from 2004 to 2011.
In some ways, Ashley-Ward says she always knew this day would come — but at the same time, she can barely believe it's happening.
Here is part of her conversation with As It Happens host Carol Off.
When you were hearing [Harris] give that speech, what was going through your mind about your friend?
I was trying to see her actually give the speech through my tears.
But I can tell you that when I first met her over 18 years ago, I knew then that God has something extra for her. She was just this unique individual. She was very brilliant. She was very warm. She listens. And throughout the years, she's been real protective of her friendships with her girlfriends.
She's always been nurturing. And she's always just been driven and ambitious. I mean, there's no other politician that I know who's like Kamala. So I signed on to support her years ago, and I have been running with her, you know, ever since.
Where were you when you got the news about your friend becoming the vice-president elect?
I had communicated with her Friday, the day before, and I kind of knew that it was coming to be. So we communicated and I told her, "Kamala, you already know it had to be you, the one to kick in this glass ceiling." ... And so I told her, "Congratulations, Madam Vice-President, I love you very much."
She communicated right back to me and said, "You have been on this journey with me every step of the way. Thank you, Sister Amelia. I love you very much."
And so on Saturday, when you finally heard that it was confirmed, where were you when that happened?
I was at a beauty shop in San Francisco getting my hair done. And my son called me and said, "Mom, Mom, CNN has called the race! It's over, it's over! They've won!"
I literally dropped my phone. I started crying, and the ... ladies in the shop heard me screaming and hollering, and they started screaming and hollering, jumping up and down.
Even though I felt that it was happening, just to hear that it was actually over with and done, it was just — it was just crazy. It was just crazy. I just lost it, cried.
I just sat there for a minute because I had to pinch myself. I'm like, can you believe this? My girlfriend, someone who I believed in from the beginning when she decided to run this race and she had to endure all the criticism and the nastiness that comes along with powerful women who want to do things. And I was there when she endured that, and I had to let her know that I believed in her and I have her back and we were going to do this.
It's like, not in my lifetime. First Barack Obama, and now Kamala Harris follows.
I'm still speechless. It's still really hard to talk about it.
[While] running to become the Democratic nominee, and then running with Joe Biden for the office, she took a lot of hits, didn't she?
She's taken a lot of hits all of her political career.
So what was it like when President [Donald] Trump was calling her a "monster" and "nasty"? How did she take that?
People who talk nasty and dirty about you, she has her way of just ignoring them and considering where it's coming from, considering the source. And she's never let that stop her, as you can see.
Did you talk to her when she was in the campaign? Did you get a sense of what was like for her?
When she had to abort her presidential campaign, that was painful.... She was hurt, and we were hurt. We cried then. Her girlfriends cried.
But we always knew that there was a possibility that she could be on the ticket for vice-president because ... Biden had already said that he would pick a woman of colour, and you knew that that would have to be a Black woman. I mean, the Black vote and Black women saved him.
And when you look at all the brilliant Black women that came to play, it had to be Kamala because she had the total experience. She had won district attorney. She had won attorney general. She had won senator. And she had the experience.
I want to ask you, just because you met her when she was running for district attorney in San Francisco and, as you point out, she went on to be the state's attorney general. But we spoke with and we heard from Democrats who [said they] couldn't vote for the Harris-Biden ticket. We heard that people didn't feel that Kamala Harris had done enough to push for criminal justice reform as the first Black AG in the state, and that laws that put so many Black Americans behind bars, she was passive in the face of those, she didn't do enough to resist that. What do you say to that criticism?
You know what? I don't buy that. I think that she was a good prosecutor. I think that she was fair.
You're going to always get criticism from people no matter what you do. And when you're a woman, and when you're a Black woman, a woman of colour, people are always going to come down and criticize you because they resent you being in that role anyway. And I know that because of the role that I'm in, and I know that because I've watched for the past 40 years how women of colour who are in power are treated. You can never do anything right to please everybody.
What do you think she [is going to be] confronted with when she and Joe Biden take office in January?
They're going to be confronted with a lot. First, they're going to have to get it over to the people that they have to do things to protect themselves and their fellow man ... or fellow woman, to wear their mask, and to listen and to obey what the health experts are saying [about COVID-19]. And then they're going to really get involved in finding the vaccine. To grab ahold and start getting rid of this pandemic.
What will Inauguration Day be like for you?
Wow. I'm thinking about it. I haven't made any plans yet. I'm trying to still just wind down from this victory.
I'm still speechless. I'm tearing up right now. It's going to be — it's just going to be great. I just know that. It's just hard to describe how I'm feeling right now. It's finally, after coming down, it's just, I mean ... do you understand what I'm saying?
Yes, I can. I can hear, even behind your words, the emotion.
I mean, I'm just laying here and I'm like, I cannot believe this. I cannot believe. I mean, having been on this journey.
And then I think about her dear mother, and I know she's looking down on her smiling, but I said: Wow. Wow. That's the only thing missing from this celebration for Kamala. Because even though she knows her mom is there smiling down on us, she would love to have her dear mother, who pushed her.
I mean, this woman is responsible for three brilliant women — Kamala, now the vice-president of the United States; her sister, Maya, who is an outstanding attorney; and then Maya's daughter, her mother's granddaughter, who's also an attorney and businesswoman. Can you believe that?
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview produced by Kate Swoger. Q&A edited for length and clarity.
