TOP
Lateefah Simon
Chapters
The FRONTLINE Interviews
Lateefah Simon
Harris Friend
Lateefah Simon worked with Kamala Harris during Harris’ tenure as San Francisco district attorney. Simon led Harris’ “Back on Track” program, an initiative to reduce recidivism. In 2013, Simon received a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship for her work with marginalized young women.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Michael Kirk for FRONTLINE on July 25, 2024. It has been edited for clarity and length.
This interview appears in:
Text Interview:
Highlight text to share it
Meeting Kamala Harris
Lateefah, where were you when you—when Kamala Harris met you for the first time?
You want to hear the story? I'm going to tell it.
Yeah.
I think it was about 24 years ago.I'm trying to figure out the math myself.All I know is I was very young.I was about 24 years old, 23, 24 years old.And prior to meeting her, I get a call from a young, newly-hired deputy city attorney in San Francisco.Kamala Harris was hired by the first elected woman city attorney in San Francisco, a woman named Louise Renne.Kamala calls me and introduces herself and tells me that she had just come from Alameda County, where, for about a decade, she had been working prosecuting rapists and folks who were pimping and pandering young women on the streets of Alameda County. And she asked me would I be willing to work with her in her new task of developing a task force of sorts to get folks who were on the right side of history, who wanted to work on changing the patterns and practices of our then-criminal justice system in San Francisco County, that arrested and charged young people who were being bought and sold on our streets.She wanted to stop that practice and to create more of a pipeline of holistic survivor support for girls who were engaged in trafficking.
And the work that I was doing at the time, as a young organizer and an executive director of a little teeny nonprofit called the Young Women's Freedom Center, we were doing just that work.She knew we were doing—she had heard—exceptional work, what the criminal justice system in our city couldn't do, and that's keeping those young women out of the life.She called me and asked me to be a part of this thing, and I said yes.
I had not met her yet.We had a few conversations, and within a couple of weeks, we met for the first time.She had a table of about 30 men in uniform, advocates, rape crisis intervention specialists.She asked me to bring some young women from the streets, and I did.We walk into this room, this grand room in the War Memorial Building in San Francisco, and I meet Kamala Harris for the first time.She was about 36 years old.I was in my early 20s.I came in with four girls.
I mention that because one of those young women, they were all in the life; they were all in the drug and sex trade.I had been working with these sisters.There was one young woman who was 14 years old.Her name was Helen.She was 14.… She was pregnant by her mother's boyfriend, who had essentially passed her around.She was raped by multiple men.Her mother was struggling with drugs and alcohol.
Kamala had never met this woman, this girl.She was visibly pregnant.She immediately, when I walked in, she didn't hug me first.She went to Helen, and she cupped her face, and she kissed her forehead, and she grabbed her hand and said, in this huge room, vaulted ceilings, 30 folks, police officers, she says, “You're going to come and sit in the front with me.”
Now I had been working day in and day out for years, fighting district attorneys, deputies, who were prosecuting girls like Helen.And in that moment, I knew this woman was extremely special.First of all, when you meet Kamala Harris, you see the seriousness in her face.But she's also stunning and brilliant and captivating.God, that was over 20 years ago.We, in six months, ended the practice in San Francisco of arresting and prosecuting young women who had been trafficked.
I knew then that I would follow her to the end of the earth.I wasn't leaving my role as an organizer.But then she decided to run for district attorney, and it was the first campaign that I had ever worked on.And I had never worked hand in hand with anyone in law enforcement before I met then DA Harris.
Simon’s Work with Women in the Justice System
That's a great story.Now you have a great story, too.Tell us your back story.Tell us the road you’ve taken, Lateefah, from the streets yourself to a MacArthur Genius Grant.What's that journey like?
It's definitely been one.Like a lot of kids, in the neighborhood that I was raised in, I was in and out of school.I was in the juvenile justice system myself and struggled.I was a teen mom.But I found my way in organizing, through organizing, community organizing.I got an after-school job.Again, I was in and out of high school.Found a job where I was hired to work with other young women on the streets of the Bay Area like myself, who were, again, in and out of school, had parents who were struggling with addiction and poverty.I found this little organization where I was hired, paid double the minimum wage, and I could work with girls to bring them into really a movement of sorts.
A couple years later, I became the executive director of that organization and worked to grow it.We became a national model for working with young people in prisons and in jails and our juvenile halls, bringing them to our center, young women and gender-expansive youth, and creating leaders out of them.
The first campaign that I worked on and won was an issue-based campaign in San Francisco, where pregnant women who were incarcerated, including girls, were being shackled during birth.And I had many occasions where I saw this practice and decided to work with a number of other advocates and fight like hell to stop this practice.We were one of the first counties in the country to do so.I got addicted to this idea that if we bring people together, especially those closest to poverty, closest to drug addiction, close to the suffering of victimhood, where we buried our own, our children, our parents, that we should have our own institutions.We should develop our fights.We should win those fights and then help government implement them.
So again, as a young organizer who had won some battles, I learned, one day, that I received a MacArthur Genius Fellowship for that work.I actually got a phone call right after getting off a plane from South Africa, where I brought some of San Francisco's most challenged young women to see what the youth were doing in South Africa, in Pretoria, 10 years after a free South Africa, knowing that we're in this little shell, but there's so much more to see.
I got a call that my life would forever change, and the organization that I was building, we now had a national and international footprint.And so, you know, working for Kamala Harris a couple of years after I got that Genius Fellowship, she called me when she was elected, a number of times, and asked me if I would work for her.And of course, you know, my retort was, “Kamala, I work, really, to beat the man.My job is to hold you all accountable.Our system is rotten to its core.It's not rehabilitating young people.It's not holding the right people accountable.”And she pushed back and gave me a sentence that would forever change my life, a message that would forever change my life.
She said, “Lateefah, you can either stand outside with this bullhorn, outside of my office”—I am very well known for that in the Bay Area—“shutting down the offices of elected officials and begging them to do right by you and your community,” she said, “or you could come and work for me, and we could sit at my desk, and we could chip away at a broken criminal justice system.”
She called my bluff.I mean, she's a lawyer's lawyer.She's a prosecutor's prosecutor.And what could I say?And she ended the conversation and said, “I'm not the man.I'm a woman.I'm an attorney, and I wear four-inch heels.”So, you know, listen, I had developed a strong institution with national recognition, but when Kamala asks you to come to be of service, there are many like me who couldn't resist.And we built amazing opportunities for those young people that I care about so much in the Bay Area, and I would have only gotten those opportunities—those young people would have only gotten those opportunities as before Kamala D. Harris.She's amazing.
Going to Work for Kamala Harris
I've read so much about your relationship with her.When you first go to work, she's sort of a mentor.She makes you go to college.She checks your papers and your homework.
Yes, she did.
She’s pushing you hard.What's that all about?What's up with that?First tell me the story, and then tell me what's up with that.
Listen, I took a lot of flak for going from a community organizer, standing up, again, around DA and police accountability, which I've never stopped, but going into the office of the county's top cop.But I knew that I was going to be working with a woman full of integrity, clarity, a deep understanding and respect for the history of social movements in this country, but also so clear about accountability.
She, like I, had the conversations about when a man rapes a woman, when a child is beaten, when an elder is disrespected, somebody needs to be held accountable.Now, let's try to work hard to make a system actually work.We're nowhere near there, even now, but who's going to speak for our folks?Who's going to speak for victims and survivors who understand our communities?She's hard-core.
Now, when I first went to work for her, my first day I got sent home, because I didn't have on a suit.And again, I was a youth organizer.I didn't really have suits and heels.She sent me home.I was wearing a sweat suit.It was, again, in the hallway, where she met me, on my first day, outside of her front office.She, before I got the finger to be sent home, she showed me the rows of pictures in frames of the men who had held the position of elected DA in San Francisco, and they were all white men.And there was her picture in a frame, a newly installed photo, and she looked at me, and she said, “Just look at this wall.Now they're going to expect us, as soon as I come in this office, as soon as you come in this office, and we get to work, the people that we're working for are going to expect that we immediately change all the ways that the system is broken.They're going to want us to fix it overnight.”And she was clear: “Systems are made up of people, but we can't change this overnight.But we're going to chip away at it every single day.That's why you're here.”
And then she told me, “If you're going to work for the people of the city and county of San Francisco, you can't come to work looking like this.”Listen, I thought I was going to go straight up to the jail, go back to the corner, talk to the young men that I knew, the young women that I knew, that were struggling on the street.She pushed me and said, “You know, if you're going to take this oath of service, you come with your best.”
I'm walking down the hall.I'm sent home on my first day by my mentor, gave me the hardest lecture I had ever had about public service and not going to the communities that are the most challenged in sneakers.And I called her executive assistant, and I said, “I'm going to come back tomorrow, but, you know, Sadie, I don't have a suit.I don't have a suit, but I'm going to come back.”She said, “Just come.Just—just—you're not fired.She didn't fire you.Come tomorrow.”I came.9:05, five minutes after I get in the office, DA Harris calls me into hers.She stands up.She has this very large desk, flags in the back.She puts her hands down, and she pulls up a bag, a beautiful shopping bag.And in that bag—she handed it over to me—and it was my first gray suit.And in Kamala fashion, it was gorgeous, a gray beautiful suit with a scarf with an L on it.OK, I’m 26 and come straight from the Tenderloin, the Fillmore District.This beautiful suit.She tells me to go put it on.It was a size two.Now, you know that was a long time ago.But again, her level of accountability, her toughness is always matched with the grace and a deep love, but I think it's out of respect for the institution of government.She really believes in this thing called justice, and that means showing up.She's been that way with me and to me for the last 20-plus years.She's tough.But again, the respect for the honor to serve, you need someone that tough.
Facing Sexism and Racism
Did you see—obviously there was racism and sexism in a white man's world.How did she handle that?How did the two of you deal with the wall of white men that were waiting for you, wherever you were, especially in that office, I would assume?
I think that question should be asked to every single woman of color in every single space, spaces that were not made for us.You walk out every single day from your door, from your home, acknowledging that there are people that don't see you as human as they.Kamala, every step that she made while she was in the office of district attorney, it was to change that paradigm.The way that she stood, the way that she spoke, the toughness on her staff—and I love the word “tough,” because I have adopted a lot of that sentiment with the folks who work with me—the demanding excellence.She would tell me, “You’ve got to come early, and you’ve got to leave late every day.You have to be better, more and more well read, Lateefah.You have to understand history.”
She gave me the criminal code.I had not finished college when I started working for her, and she just said, “Learn it.Learn it.Your kids, your young people, your clients in this program that we're building, they were arrested, and they could be charged for these crimes.You need to understand.You need to understand the law.And of course you could learn.”And I said, “Kamala, I'm a freshman in college,” even though I was in my 20s.And she would remind me, “There's nothing that we can't learn.”And she was right.
So I'm 47 years old.Listen, I have two college degrees.I have an undergrad and a master's, one in public policy.I have an MPA.My daughter, the little girl who—I was a single mom, young mom.I would get off work, and I would get my kid from the Boys & Girls Club, take my kid back to work so I could finish up, because if you weren't done, you weren't going home.Every child at Kamala Harris' Office of the District Attorney, if you had your kid there, she would demand that your child come and hang out with her in her front office.
My daughter is a prosecutor now.Who would have thought?The first lawyer in my family.My mother comes from Malvern, Arkansas.But Kamala has always said, “You’ve got to see it.”And my little girl Aminah is in Washington, DC, working for the elected AG.And I’ve got to say, for the hundreds of thousands of young people that Kamala has inspired, it's not just me; it's multi-generational.So we're all so excited for her.
When you say, “You’ve got to see it,” what does that mean?
I have a story about this.So I had worked as a volunteer on Kamala's campaign.And she was inaugurated, this great hall in San Francisco.There were thousands of folks there, thousands.When a DA is elected in a county, you're lucky if you get a couple hundred, you know.It's not the mayor; it's not the governor.Thousands of folks there.And I was on the side as a volunteer.Again, I hadn't come to work for her yet.And she comes off the stage—after her mother and Maya Harris were on stage with her as she was sworn in—she comes off the stage, and there was a young man, and he had two daughters.And she of course, in Kamala Harris fashion, immediately—because they run to the stage—she goes to greet the babies face-to-face.And I smile at the father, thanking him for bringing his babies in the middle of the day, and he said, “I just wanted them to see.I just wanted them to see.”
And I remember getting crazy emotional at that point, realizing we had worked so hard on this campaign.But in that man's lifetime, his parents lived in a segregated Bay Area.In his lifetime, those babies, it was the first time—it's not about identity politics; it's about Americans being able to see people who resemble them and their background and their struggles in a position to make decisions that affect their lives.
I think, you know, as a little girl growing up in San Francisco, when my third-grade class went to go see Mayor Feinstein in her grand office—she was the mayor of San Francisco, the first woman mayor—and we sat on that red carpet.I was a baby; I remember that so clearly.And she told the girls, in that little field trip meeting, that one day we could be mayor; we could run for elected office.I have never forgot that.
So to see women in charge, to see women who look like you, who look like your mama, your aunties, it is—there's—you can't describe it if you don't have that experience of never seeing people who look like you in positions of power, whether they be your teachers, your professors, your police officers, your dentists, your doctors.It's so important to understand that for many of us, seeing a law enforcement institution run by someone who deeply understood the suffering of crime, who deeply understood the suffering of child sexual abuse and trafficking—I can go on and on—it was so important.And it still is, more than ever now.
Harris’ Leadership Style
… I am trying really hard to imagine Sen. or Vice President Harris in that moment as a young, very important leader.How does she grab the power?How does she hold onto it?How does she exercise it, Lateefah?
I always wonder how she does it.She is one of the most humorous people that I know.She's so whip-smart.She has a crazy brain, so smart.And yet she has this hubris that comes from all that she knows, all that she's studied.She always talks about the leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, many of them being women who have never gotten their just due.I always think maybe Kamala gets up in the morning, and she mounts her armor for the outside, and she knows that she's blazing a path for all of us.
She's tougher than anybody that I've ever worked for.But I believe that those skills were built by her looking at other women around her, her mother.Her mother was a single mother working for a state institution.There was no silver spoons in their mouths.Her mother worked super hard.Her sister was a young teen mom and still went to Berkeley and Stanford, graduated with a law degree, the youngest law professor—excuse me—law dean in the state or the country.I mean, the Harrises, they're tough cookies.They're brilliant.They work really hard.
Listen, that “Come early, leave late” lexicon that Kamala has, I think she understands that she has to be excellent.And, you know, never ever, working with her, again, day in and day out, for years, did I see her shrink, did I see the battle that many of us have about going into rooms where no one looks like us.I mean, I think she enjoys the challenge of demanding that folks see her humanity, and the humanity of other folks that she's fighting for.
… I just watched her interrogate Kavanaugh, and before that Jeff Sessions, the attorney general.And there's a look, when she's on him, she's on him, and then suddenly she gets a little smile, because she knows.It's like she knows the trap has been sprung and now she has them.Have you seen that look?Do you know what that's about?
When you see Kamala Harris in committee, as a senator, during hearings, you do see the prosecutor in her, that she's fighting for someone else, not herself, right?That's where that comes from.And she also knows that she comes in, as she's trained me to do and other folks who have worked for her, ridiculously prepared.She reads everything.Again, her job has been to fight for the people, literally, in a courtroom day in and day out.Before she became an elected prosecutor, that was her training.And she's trained prosecutors.When I was working for her, I would come to the swearing-ins, when the interns and fellows would pass the bar, she was swearing in women every other week.
There's not a choice.No one is coming to save us.Kamala Harris used to say that to me all the time.The cavalry isn't coming; it's us.And so I say it every single time I can, in every stump speech that I give, because that level of clarity hopefully answers your question.Kamala Harris has been clear: No one is coming to save this nation.No one is coming to save our communities.It's us, and we have to be better; we have to be more prepared; we have to be on the right side of history; we have to use our moral compass.
Growing up in the Bay Area, Kamala grew up in a community where there were literally hundreds of languages spoken.Folks were praying to many different gods, many different religions, many different cultures and races.And thank God she has that experience.What president in the history of this country, dare I say, has the experience of growing up in a coastal space where really, the world was right outside of her window?And she takes that with her wherever she is.
Harris’ Childhood
Tell me what you know of her life story as a little kid growing up in Berkeley and Oakland and the whole Bay Area.What's it like?What's young Kamala Harris' life like when she was a kid?
You know, the one thing that I do know about Kamala's childhood, and I got to spend some great time with her mom, God rest her soul.And Maya Harris, I actually knew Maya Harris before I knew Kamala Harris, and didn't know they were related.That's a whole other story.All those women.Oh, my goodness.Nothing slides by them.
What I know about Kamala growing up in the East Bay, and I'll—listen, people have all these theories about who Kamala was growing up.One thing I know is her mother sent her to Ms. Shelton's daycare, OK?That's all I need to know.The Shelton family has been a neighborhood daycare oasis for single moms for decades.I think they've closed up shop.But listen, that's all you've got to tell me, is that that woman was going to graduate school, teaching at the Lawrence Livermore Labs, and she was dropping her babies off at Ms. Shelton's house.That tells you a lot, that a young woman of color, single mom, academic, making a state salary, lived in a Black neighborhood and had a community around her to support the growth and the cultural development of these children.
Ms. Shyamala relied on the safety net of the African American community to help raise those babies.And goodness, I wish she was here.She would go to all of Kamala's fundraisers when she was running for district attorney.Shyamala was right there.I wish she could be here to see her big girl.
Tell me just a little bit about Ms. Shelton's daycare center.I’ve never heard of it, and it just sounds perfect.What is it?
Ms. Shelton's family has had a family daycare inside of a house for decades.And I'm a single mother; I’ve worked with single mothers.And so many of us have had the experience of finding a local daycare and having your kids go there.You ask folks who were raised in the '70s and '80s in Oakland, and if they weren't in the Shelton family daycare, they knew someone who was.I've had many of young women and girlfriends that I knew who were very, very close with that family.
And I had learned that Kamala went to the Shelton daycare in just a casual conversation.We were talking about me at that point in my life, coming from my center to work for her, as someone with a school-age kid.And she would always tell me, “I know.I know.Maya and I used to come home from school, make our lunches, eat our dinner.Mom would come home.”I was so happy to have a boss who had that experience, that she relied on, again, this network of Black professionals, of working-class folks, of other single mothers, Shyamala, to help support and raise and nurture these babies in Berkeley and in Oakland.Folks who are from here know that.
And what's the daycare?Is it just that, the existence of it, or is there something special about graduates of the daycare center?
I think that when you hear that folks went to the Sheltons’, listen, Ms. Shelton dedicated her life to making sure that low-income moms, single moms, moms in school had a place to take their babies.What kind of president do you want, right?I know all of the things that Kamala Harris has seen in the eyes of a prosecutor, protecting women and children.Again, her mother being a single mother, taking her to the daycare center right down the street where she got meals—meals and good play.And those same folks would take the babies to church on the weekend.Kamala would tell me about her growing up, but just how special and clear she was about the power of women leading in communities.Those are the women who helped to take care of her.
… Honestly, that's a great—just a great thing to know about her that I didn't know about her.
Yeah, ask her about it.
Well, I get the impression that she doesn't like to tell stories about her life to people. She thinks—
She always says, “It's not about me. It's not about me. It's not about me.”
Right. But in this case, it is a hell of a lot about her, isn't it?
Kamala's story is the American story: a daughter of immigrants; a mom who worked day and night to figure out how to make it all work; living in the Bay Area, close to her job; sending the kids to school, the best schools she could find.You know, Maya went to a Catholic school here in Oakland, a very diverse Catholic school, Bishop O'Dowd.They're very loved in the Bay Area for folks who grew up with them, because a lot of these young folks in those times had a similar story, doing the best that they can, supporting their mom while their mom worked countless hours.What an American story.
Did she ever tell you anything about her dad? ...
No. What I know and who I saw all those days and late nights and phone banking was Shyamala Harris.
Harris as a Prosecutor
… Did she innovate as a prosecutor?Did you see innovations?Were they long-lasting? ...
Kamala's role as the elected prosecutor in California, and again, I'm talking as somebody now with a 30-year history of doing work around justice reform, not to make the justice system easier or less aggressive—to make it actually just.That's the work that I have done.And so to go back and think about what she did in those seven and a half, almost eight years, her role as the district attorney was consequential.One, again, treating victims like victims.She expanded the Victim Services Unit in that office, hiring a woman, Maria Bee, to lead that office, to provide care for folks beyond the scope.And I know, because again, I was working with young people who were deeply victimized, and it was so difficult for them to get care and support.Kamala really understood her office as a space for victims and survivors.
Two, her understanding that the criminal justice system wasn't living up to what it was supposed to be.It was both supposed to hold folks accountable, but also prevent folks from coming into the system.We started a program that, again, was wildly successful based on her understanding that in California, we were sending young people to prison for up to 20 years for small amounts of crack cocaine and other drugs, young people who had no violent crime, no gang history.She created a diversion program, a reentry unit, to address what folks in her office had done before, fill up our prisons with folks who simply needed a big accountability push with a similar push around accountability and opportunity.
She led the first reentry unit of any DA's office in the country.Again, I was there to do that work with her.Moreover, hiring and nurturing young prosecutors from the communities that were experiencing ridiculous amounts of crime, again, she's—there are so many more.I would say so many more victories.But me working with her, seeing again this focus on being smart on crime, and not just using the old playbook, understanding—she was very clear: “I need the private sector.I need labor.I need the ground, the NGOs on the ground, and the criminal justice system to work together, to make sure, one, that we're holding folks accountable, that we're pushing opportunity, and that folks actually see the justice system as a value-add in communities that are most affected by crime.”
How controversial, unacceptable, difficult to get through, was all of that at the time?How much pushback was there?
… She asked me to come into her office and lead her reentry unit, understanding that it cost the state at that time upwards of $100,000 a year to incarcerate a nonviolent drug offender.And she said, “What will it take to get them off of the streets for good?”And I said, “Give me $5,000 a year for each client, each defendant, and we'll get them off the streets.”She wanted to address root causes.She would say all the time, “This shouldn't be our job, Lateefah, but it's our job.”No one is looking at a correlation between truancy and the homicide of young men.She made—in our office, she made my crew do an analysis of the 18-to-25-year-olds who had been murdered in the city and county of San Francisco within a 10-year period, and what we understood from that analysis was that a majority of those children had been truant.She was trying to save their lives.She said, “Well, we've got to do something about truancy, because I'm going to have to prosecute more killers, and we're going to have to bury, again, more babies.What are the ways that we could use our office,” she asked the team, “to figure out how to intervene, where these other systems aren't doing their job?”
Again, I never met anybody like her.She would say things that were so, so intense but true.She would say, “You know, listen, folks in San Francisco will stop for a stray dog before they stop an 11- and 12-year-old Black kid in the middle of the day to ask them why they weren't in school.”And that clarity, her being so proximate to the realities and community, listen, she didn't come into politics because she wanted power.She came into politics, and she's running for the president of the United States, because she realizes that this cup of experience, no one else has it.No one else has it.No one's coming to save us, but someone who's had to look at a woman in the face who had just lost her child, Kamala has had to prosecute those cases.
She's also had to look at a prison system in California that lets folks out, and nothing that they've been through while they were in prison was done to help rehabilitate them.She has a full-circle analysis on where we need to go, and not just the criminal justice system, but again, as someone who has been so dedicated to young people in our educational system.Again, I trust her when she's talking about creating a context in which we'll one day all breathe clean air; we'll all have opportunities to get medical care that we can afford.I believe her.
… Talk a little bit about how you see her handling the division in Washington, and in the country?What can she do?What has she done in the past that gives us an indication of how she might handle it?
You know, I'm really hopeful for so many reasons for Kamala's candidacy and also for what I know will be her presidency.She's a unifier, but she's also tough.I've seen her go head-to-head with our, when she was a DA, with our elected public defender, and then after they go out for coffee.She understands the job.She understands the job; that one, she's the first, and she's also not going to be the last.She's building a bench.She's going to have the greatest staff around her.
But even in our global geopolitics, talk about you and I living in a time where the most powerful person in the world will be a woman.Wars will be waged differently.Kamala Harris will, I believe, be far ahead and above one of the best folks we've had in our government's history in terms of being a stateswoman who can actually achieve peace.And I don't want to look through any of this with rose-colored glasses, but if we get the opportunity to see a woman lead on the international stage, I think our children will all be better off for it, and particularly that woman being Kamala Harris.
Harris Becomes the Democratic Presidential Nominee
When you heard that Joe Biden had sent that letter to Twitter, that he was done and he was stepping out, what was your first reaction?Where were you?What were you thinking?Did you pick up the phone?What did you do?
I have been on the phone ever since I saw that Twitter message come out, and I saw it about five minutes after it posted.And I jumped up, and I couldn't believe it, because you know what?I know now what I knew just a few days ago.I knew now what I knew when that post came out, that the world would come behind Kamala Harris.I knew that it was going to be a different day in the Democratic Party.
Listen, myself, I'm running for Congress now.I can't believe that I'm going to get to serve in a Harris White House.I know we'll be better off—all of us, not just folks on the left and Democrats, but, you know, those women who are in West Virginia right now, who are coming out of the coal mines, and their lungs are struggling, and they don't have daycare, and their father has dementia, but there's no placement for him at a space where he's actually going to have dignity and pride in his last years.We have a very similar American story from this side, again, of the country to the South, to the North.We're all struggling with the same thing.
So I was so excited that there is going to be someone at the Democratic Convention named Kamala Harris that I get to cheer for and as a superdelegate vote for her as the nominee, and we're going to send her to the White House, because she's actually going to lead our country into a path where we're better off.I'm so excited, not because I know her and I have worked with her—well, maybe, because I know who she is, really who she is, how hard she works, how much she cares, the expectation that she has on others who have taken the oath to serve, the dignity in which she walks, how she loves young people, how she loves her family.We're in a very, very good space.We're in a very good space having someone like her on the ticket.
So yeah, I was in my room.I was jumping for joy, and then I just started making calls to a ton of folks.And I've been on a lot of calls, a lot of Zooms.Folks are organizing in ways that I haven't seen folks organize since the Obama election.And we're going to get this done in the next 100 days.
… Are there things you saw about her back then that now resonate, and you say, “Ahh”?But was there, is there a through line about Kamala Harris that you knew back in the day that's in evidence now, and going to be, if she's in the Oval Office, going to be who she is and how she deals every single day?Is there something that I need to know about, about her, that I need to see then and pull through all the way to the Oval Office?What is it?
Kamala Harris demands respect.She demands it.If it's not given to her, she demands it.And she understands, when she walks into the room, that there is less expected of her.So she demands, one, so much of herself, but demands the absolute best from everyone around her.And that's what you want in a public servant.You want that level of grit.You want that tenacity, that hubris, that understanding that this person actually believes that they can be a part of changing what is broke, what's broken.
I think that that is what sets her apart.But, you know, you have that, and then you have the Kamala that we all know and love—that joy, that laughter.She's a special person.She's a really special person.And, you know, when I talk about her as a boss, I don't think I can articulate just how formative she has been for the young folks who have worked for her.You want a boss, the CEO of the United States, who's going to do exactly what she did for me: hold me accountable but give me opportunity.She's going to send me home, because I didn't have a suit.But she's going to make sure that, given the opportunity, I can do the best that I can on that job, given the tools.
You know, the last thing that I will say, when I worked with Kamala, she gave me so many things, as you know, a push to be the best.She made me go to college.Worked extremely hard, working full-time and going to college during those days.But she also introduced me to my husband.I don't know if I've mentioned that.There was a young reporter—
Harris Introduced Simon to Her Husband
This is Kevin?
Did you ever read that story?
I know about Kevin.But tell me.Start at the beginning, and tell me that story.
Yeah.So Kamala Harris was, as usual, doing things a bit different, as a district attorney.There was a young African American woman who was schizophrenic, who killed her babies.It was a horrific story.It was tragic, shocking.I wasn't, again, on the court side; I was on the policy side.I was running my programs when I was in her office that were focused on reentry.There was a press conference about her choice to prosecute this young woman not with the death penalty, but to send her to our state hospital, understanding that she had not gotten care.She was in a horrible space when she committed these tragedies.Kamala chose, again, not to be easy on this woman, but understanding and recognizing that she was not well.
And New America Media, where my husband worked, as the head of the African American desk, had put together an ethnic media press conference for other members of the ethnic media to try to understand why this district attorney was going to charge a case, but think about charging differently, understanding what accountability meant for this woman, that she would serve the rest of her days in a hospital, not a little prison cell.
I wasn't invited to the press conference.But after the press conference, she called me, and she said, “I want you to meet someone.”And she introduced me to Kevin Weston.We got married.We had a kid.Kamala married us.And she totally takes credit for my 13-year-old daughter being born.She's 13 now.But, you know, she was the first person that I called when Kevin got a terminal diagnosis.I said, “Kevin, they said he's going to die.They said he's going to die, Kamala.”And this was shortly after her mother's death, and she said, “Hold onto the memories.”You know, I'm in the ICU.“Hold onto the memories.”She didn't say, “Nope, it might be fine.”She was just very matter-of-fact.Whatever that means, hold onto the memories.I will never forget that.
So she married us.And she also eulogized him at his funerals.I thank her so much for being so human in my life, for being so tough on me as a mentor, expecting the very best, but also being someone who is so full of love, full of love.And yeah, I owe her so much.I'm not on staff; I'm not any of that.I just love that lady.I love that lady.And I think, you know, my daughter, who's 13 now, who buried her father when she was 3 years old, in her lifetime, she's going to be able to look back and say, “In 2025, we swore in—the first woman president was sworn in.”That makes me really happy, and not just a woman, but someone with the creativity, the gumption, the brilliance, the clarity, the love of country, Kamala Harris.
Latest Interviews
Latest Interviews
Policies
Teacher Center
Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation
Koo and Patricia Yuen
FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
