Kamala Harris’ Evanston Home Now Houses Northwestern's African Studies Program

EVANSTON, IL — Vice President Kamala Harris was briefly an Evanston toddler who lived in the building that is now home to Northwestern University’s Program of African Studies.

Harris, who acknowledged her time in Illinois as she accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president in Chicago this summer, lived with her parents at 620 Library Place after her father took a job at nearby Northwestern University for the 1967-68 academic year. She was 3 years old at the time.

Her father, Donald Harris, served as a visiting assistant professor of economics at Northwestern, while her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, worked in the university’s Biological Sciences Department.

Prior to moving to Northwestern, the family lived in Champaign for a year while both Harris and Gopalan worked at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The family’s stay at the Library Place home was short-lived, as they moved to Madison, Wisconsin, the following year.

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Donald Harris later joined Stanford University, becoming the first Black professor granted tenure in its economics department, and Gopalan made groundbreaking contributions to cancer research at institutions across the country.

The couple divorced in 1971, when Kamala was 7, and her mother became her primary guardian and main influence.

The Harrises' former Evanston home is a red brick building built in 1903, and acquired by Northwestern in the early 1960s. University officials only recently learned of the connection to the potential future president.

Today, the house has modern touches, but remnants of its original design remain, including the front fireplace and turned staircase. An addition in the back now accommodates classrooms, lecture halls and student gatherings.

While former President Barack Obama was a law professor at the University of Chicago, the only past president with a direct connection to Northwestern University is Ronald Reagan. His future wife, Nancy Davis, attended Northwestern for a year before transferring to Smith College.