The Truths We Hold: An American Journey Book By Kamala Harris (PDF-Summary-Review-Online Reading-Download)

The Truths We Hold: An American Journey Book By Kamala Harris From 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.

Book Summary

Senator 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, and 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 the top law enforcement official in California, and it is guiding her now as a transformational United States Senator, grappling with an array of complex issues that affect her state, our country, and the world, 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.

Book Review

On July 4, 1992, one of my heroes and inspirations, former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, delivered a speech that resonates deeply today. “We cannot play ostrich,” he said. “Democracy simply cannot flourish amid fear. Freedom cannot flourish amid hatred. Justice cannot take root amid rage. America must get to work. . . . We must disagree with indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from fear, hatred, and mistrust ”.

This book stems from that call to action and my belief that our struggle must begin and end by telling the truth.

We cannot solve our most stubborn problems unless we are honest about what they are unless we are willing to have difficult conversations and accept the facts clearly.

We need to tell the truth: that there are forces of hate in this country (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-Semitism) and we have to confront them. We need to tell the truth: that with the exception of Native Americans, we all descend from people who were not born on our shores, whether our ancestors came to America of their own free will, hoping for a prosperous future, or by force, on a slave ship, or desperately, to escape a painful past.

We need to tell the truth about what it takes for all American workers to earn a living with dignity and decency. We must tell the truth about who we sent to jail in this country and why. We must speak the truth about companies that make a profit by preying on the most vulnerable among us. And I intend to do just that.

About The Author of The Book Kamala Harris

Kamala D. Harris is a lifelong public safety and civil rights leader and is currently serving as a U.S. Senator from California. She began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, then was elected district attorney of San Francisco. As California’s attorney general, Harris prosecuted transnational gangs, big banks, Big Oil, and for-profit colleges, and fought against attacks on the Affordable Care Act. She also fought to reduce elementary school truancy, pioneered the nation’s first open data initiative to expose racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and implemented implicit bias training for police officers. The second black woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate, Harris has worked to reform our criminal justice system, raise the minimum wage, make higher education tuition-free for the majority of Americans, and protect the legal rights of refugees and immigrants.

The Truths We Hold: An American Journey PDF