Vice President Kamala Harris took the oath office in a barrier-breaking ceremony Wednesday that recognized her the first woman, first Black American and first South Asian American to hold the office.
Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, was sworn in by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a trailblazer in her own right as the first Latina justice on the high court.
She used two bibles previously belonging to the late civil rights icon and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, whom Harris has said inspired her career path, and family friend Regina Shelton, who was like a second mother to Harris and her sister. Harris used Shelton’s bible when she took the oath of office as California Attorney General and later as a U.S. senator.
President-elect Joe Biden and wife Dr. Jill Biden were introduced at the inauguration ceremony at 11:18 am. They walked out the Capitol’s west doors, down the steps and were greeted with applause.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff were introduced shortly beforehand.
It came after former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Supreme Court justices and outgoing Vice President Mike Pence took their seats. The introductions occurred around the same time outgoing President Donald Trump, who is not attending the ceremony, landed in Florida on Air Force One.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a chairwoman of the Inaugural Committee, began the ceremony by acknowledging the attack on the Capitol two weeks ago by a pro-Trump mob.
She said it “awakened us to our responsibility as Americans.”
“This is the day when our democracy picks ourselves up, brushes off the dust and does what America always does: goes forward as a nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
