A New York Times bestseller
From Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, one of America's most inspiring
political leaders, a book about the core truths that unite us, and the
long struggle to discern what those truths are and how best to act upon
them, in her own life and across the life of our country
Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris's commitment to speaking truth is
informed by her upbringing. The daughter of immigrants, she was raised
in an Oakland, California community that cared deeply about social
justice; her parents--an esteemed economist from Jamaica and an admired
cancer researcher from India--met as activists in the civil rights
movement when they were graduate students at Berkeley. Growing up,
Harris herself never hid her passion for justice, and when she became a
prosecutor out of law school, a deputy district attorney, she quickly
established herself as one of the most innovative change agents in
American law enforcement. She progressed rapidly to become the elected
District Attorney for San Francisco, and then the chief law enforcement
officer of the state of California as a whole. Known for bringing a
voice to the voiceless, she took on the big banks during the foreclosure
crisis, winning a historic settlement for California's working families.
Her hallmarks were applying a holistic, data-driven approach to many of
California's thorniest issues, always eschewing stale tough on crime
rhetoric as presenting a series of false choices. Neither tough nor soft
but smart on crime became her mantra. Being smart means learning the
truths that can make us better as a community, and supporting those
truths with all our might. That has been the pole star that guided
Harris to a transformational career as California's attorney general, as
a United States senator, and now as vice president-elect, grappling in
every role with an array of complex issues, from health care and the new
economy to immigration, national security, the opioid crisis, and
accelerating inequality.
By reckoning with the big challenges we face together, drawing on the
hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those
who have most inspired her, Kamala Harris offers in THE TRUTHS WE HOLD a
master class in problem solving, in crisis management, and leadership in
challenging times. Through the arc of her own life, on into the great
work of our day, she communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared
purpose, and shared values. In a book rich in many home truths, not
least is that a relatively small number of people work very hard to
convince a great many of us that we have less in common than we actually
do, but it falls to us to look past them and get on with the good work
of living our common truth. When we do, our shared effort will continue
to sustain us and this great nation, now and in the years to come.
