All posts tagged: first woman

Jesmyn Ward: ‘She Who Remembers’

Jesmyn Ward: ‘She Who Remembers’

The Georgia men wake everyone in the drenched dark. The pain of the march simmers through me, and I wipe at my mud-soaked clothing, swipe at the threads of soil in my wounds—all of it futile. We are tired. Even though the Georgia men threaten and harass and whip, we chained and roped women plod. “Aza,” I say, sounding the name of the spirit who wore lightning: “Aza.” Every step jolts up my leg, my spine, my head. Every step, another beat of her name: Aza. Explore the November 2023 Issue Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. View More We walk down into New Orleans, and each step is a little falling. We leave the lake and the stilted houses behind; the trees reach, swaying and nodding on all sides, and us in the middle of a green hand. When the hand opens, there is a river, a river so wide the people on the other side are small as rabbits, half-frozen in their feed in the midmorning …

The Kamala Harris Problem – The Atlantic

The Kamala Harris Problem – The Atlantic

On a Thursday morning in April, I met with Vice President Kamala Harris at Number One Observatory Circle, the Victorian mansion that, for the past two and a half years, she and the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, have called home. She can be a striking presence when she walks into a room, with a long stride and an implacable posture that make her seem taller than she is (about 5 foot 2). By the time I saw Harris at the residence, I had already traveled with her to Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, and Reno, Nevada, as well as to Africa, trips on which she had carried herself with ease and confidence. Explore the November 2023 Issue Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. View More Ease and confidence have not been the prevailing themes of Harris’s vice presidency. Her first year on the job was defined by rhetorical blunders, staff turnover, political missteps, and a poor sense among even her allies of what, exactly, constituted her portfolio. Within …