Harris chooses home of anti-Trump movement to launch his campaign

OAKLAND, Calif. – Elizabeth Warren published a video for New Year's Eve. Kirsten Gillibrand performed Stephen Colbert.

Kamala Harris becomes great. [19659005] History Continues Below

On Sunday, the Democratic Senator will launch her presidential campaign with a speech to thousands of supporters who, she hopes, will mark Democratic voters – and will be considered a milestone event of his career and the 2020 campaign.

A senator from Barack Obama, the Democratic senator wants to make the link between her personal biography and her reason for running general.He chose Oakland as a means of Linking his campaign to the place that has nurtured his values ​​- a diverse and progressive city – is known for his militant activism that has become a bastion of Trump's rebellion.

Oakland is Harris' hometown and has spent his formative years on the border between the city and Berkeley. In elementary school, she participated in a national bus desegregation experiment. It's also where Harris made his professional debut; and where she went to work as a prosecutor in an office that was formerly headed by Earl Warren, who later, as chief justice, headed a unanimous Supreme Court to help end school segregation with his decision in Brown c. Board of Education .

And in Oakland, almost three decades ago, for the first time in her career, she presented herself to a judge like "Kamala Harris," for the people, "a line that is only a few years old. it adopted its slogan for the presidential campaign.

"Oakland is known for its strength, pride, diversity and being a city that represents the oppressed," POLITICO Senior Policy Strategist Sean Clegg told IRIN. the Harris campaign. "She has visited many places and she will be talking about other aspects of her case, but she will start the campaign where it all started for her."

Harris, who is setting up office campaign in Oakland and Baltimore, is not the first candidate to rely on the symbolism for its launch.Obsa participated in the contest in 2008 with a speech in Springfield, Illinois, his state of 39; The address summed up perfectly his professional background and the reasons for his his campaign in the context of a reception hall where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous "House Divided" speech in 1858 condemning slavery.

Like Obama, Harris paid close attention to the details of his deployment. After announcing the Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Harris unveiled a logo honoring former representative Shirley Chisholm, whose run for president in 1972 was the first by a black woman belonging to a major political party. Later that day, she held her first press conference on the campus of Howard University, her historically black alma mater. Her first trip to South Carolina this year took place on Friday – to address members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority – a group of politically connected women who could bear fruit during the primary.

The history of women's activism and black activism in Oakland James Taylor, author of "Black Nationalism in the United States: from Malcolm X to Barack Obama," said James Taylor: "Launching his campaign here, is tapping into all those micro-stories that abound – from the general strike of 1930s seamstresses Taylor

Harris's choice for Frank Ogawa Plaza, located on the outside of City Hall, as his kickoff site will bring supporters to the same place chosen by Obama for his introduction in 2007 in the Bay Area. For Harris, daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, the setting is another opportunity to build relationships with African Americans from across the country.

That's to say, "I have my skills as a South American," added Taylor. "I do not claim Washington, DC, I claim Oakland."

Oakland does not matter either: it's not San Francisco, the political neighbor of the city at the other end of the bay, where wealth and the poverty are extreme in constant conflict, and whose famous liberal line makes it a target for ridicule. And it's not Los Angeles, the vast megalopolis of the south where apathy is great and Hollywood dreams are more often disappointed than they are.

Oakland, like Harris herself, is not easily categorized. High crime rates and increasing homelessness have been annoying local officials for years. The civic pride of the city has taken successive strokes from the Oakland Raiders and the upcoming move of the Golden State Warriors to San Francisco. But in a deep blue state that exports technology and entertainment, Oakland's economic boom has come to represent a kind of American renaissance. His progressiveness gives Harris a stark contrast to Donald Trump.

"In Trump times, people are looking for opposition models and symbols of opposition to this president and his politics, and Oakland has this long history of opposition and militant activity," Liam O 'Donoghue, a local historian who produces the regional podcast "East Bay Yesterday," said in an interview. "Some people would view the militant black militancy of the United States as the cradle of Black history. Panthers ", which made the city its seat in the 1970s and whose leaders, including Bobby Seale and Elaine Brown, ran for office.

More recently, Oakland has played a foreground, sometimes violent, widespread political organization.After the first major protests on Wall Street, the city quickly adopted the Occupy movement, which resulted in thousands of people on the streets and scenes of clashes between police and protesters who made headlines for weeks. The Black Lives Matter movement, fueled by shootings involving police such as Oscar Grant's, prompted Oakland activists to shut down highways almost every night for a month in 2015, sparking violent clashes that have again put the city in the spotlight.

In recent years, Oakland has taken on a different role, as a star of tourism and gastronomy in major publications, which compared its "boho" atmosphere to that of Brooklyn, New York. And the city has been featured in such great films as "Black Panther," "Blindspotting," and "Sorry to Bother You," making Harris's choice a resonant place for Millennials who might not remember the fiery days of Panther. But with gentrification threatening long-time residents and changing demographics, O 'Donoghue said: "We feel that pride in Oakland's history is particularly strong right now," because the locals want to preserve the authenticity derived from its raucous past.

penchant for activism that preoccupied with choosing the place of Harris. Don Perata, a Democrat who has represented Oakland for years in the Senate, described the decision as "risky" and pointed to his past as a prosecutor, San Francisco attorney and Attorney General, who was giving trouble to "l & rsquo; Far left of the country ". and make accusing remarks & # 39; & # 39; about his record in law enforcement.

Harris does not seem too worried. At a fundraiser in Washington a few years ago, where Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey had joined him, Harris used his Oakland roots to illustrate his toughness. Speaking in front of the room after Booker spoke, Harris said his presence reminded him of his first run: representative of the first grade class of Howard's student council.

"And you know my opponent was tough because she was from New Jersey," Harris said. "But I'll tell you something else," she added, creating suspense for a line that would ruin the house: "I was born in Oakland!"