(Democratic Convention) Kamala Harris recalls lessons from mother

Democratic vice presidential nominee, Kamala Harris opened her acceptance speech on Wednesday by remembering her late mother, lamenting the fact that she could not be there to see her daughter's achievement of becoming the first Black and South Asian woman nominated to a major party’s presidential ticket, CNN reports.

“My mother taught me that service to others gives life purpose and meaning. And oh, how I wish she were here tonight but I know she’s looking down on me from above,” Harris said.

She added that she often thinks about what her mother must have thought when she first gave birth at 25-years old at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California.

“On that day, she probably could have never imagined that I would be standing before you now speaking these words: I accept your nomination for Vice President of the United States of America,” Harris said.

Earlier in the speech, Harris said she was there standing on her mother’s shoulders, a woman who “came here from India at age 19 to pursue her dream of curing cancer. At the University of California, Berkeley, she met my father, Donald Harris — who had come from Jamaica to study economics.”

“In the streets of Oakland and Berkeley, I got a stroller’s-eye view of people getting into what the great John Lewis called ‘good trouble,'” Harris said.

Harris’ mother died of cancer in 2009.-Photo: CNN