Kamala Harris Represents…

This graphic circulated around the internet quickly upon breaking news that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would become the next President and Vice President of the United States. Harris is smashing one of our two highest and hardest glass ceilings. In doing so, she represents so much of our history and more importantly, our future.

Harris Represents Women — the obvious, overarching 51% of the population that has waited since 1776 to see one of its gender represented in the highest halls of power. Her white suit was a nod to the 100 year anniversary of the 19th amendment writing women’s right to vote into the U.S. Constitution — and the decades-long battles afterward to make sure all American women have the unfettered right to exercise that primary civic duty.

But as my colleague Charreah Jackson taught me when she conducted a racial equity review of all Take The Lead’s curricula, women aren’t a monolith. While we want every little girl to see her potential to occupy the Oval Office or achieve any other of her most ambitious intentions, let’s center this…

Harris Represents Black Women. For too many years, Black women have awaited the promise of democracy to give everyone a fair shot. They’ve been active voters, and now the backbone of votes that won key states for Biden/Harris. They have built communities of support — the powerful secret sauce of influence.

“This showed the collective power Black women have to help each other rise,” Minda Harts, author of The Memo, told Fortune’s Broadsheet. “When we collaborate, we can change history… It’s about bringing others along with you. I know that visual on that stage in Delaware will signal to CEOs, to companies, to board members, that you can sponsor women of color, you can sponsor Black women — and look how we can change history.”

And on that stage, the photo of Harris with her two grandnieces sends a clear message to all Black and Brown girls that their potential is unlimited. Karen Attiah writes in the Washington post, “This is a triumphant moment that calls for celebration. The best way for America to honor Harris’s historical moment is to protect, support and elevate Black women.” This is also a strategic inflection moment and I sincerely hope every Black woman today has a sense of her well-earned power, and more importantly a commitment to using it to continue making progress.

Harris Represents South Asian Women. Harris credits her mother, an immigrant from India, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, as being the most powerful influence on her own self-awareness of all she could accomplish and a driving force who nurtured her ambitions and intentions to succeed in politics and elsewhere.

“She maybe didn’t quite imagine this moment,” Ms. Harris said of her mother, “But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible, and so I am thinking about her and about the generations of women, Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women — who throughout our nation’s history have paved the way for this moment tonight — women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all.”

Harris Represents the slow, erratic bend in America’s moral arc toward justice.

The silhouette of six-year-old Ruby Bridges in 1960 walking through menacing crowds, flanked by U.S. Marshals, into William Frantz Elementary school to challenge segregated New Orleans, leading Harris forward, brings me to tears. As a young wife and mother of preschoolers in West Texas at the time, I was inspired by this very photo to join local Civil Rights Movement organizations and thus launched into a life of racial and gender justice activism. The moment was immortalized in Norman Rockwell’s 1964 painting. It’s been said that Rosa Parks sat so Ruby Bridges could walk so Kamala Harris could run.

Harris Represents the luminous beauty of diversity in an increasingly diverse country.

In addition to being biracial, Harris represents the vibrant contributions that immigrants like her parents have made and continue to make to this country. Almost half of our Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants.

I’m the granddaughter of four Jewish immigrants who came to America to escape persecution. They taught me to appreciate the privilege of living in a free country and participating actively in its civic life. So I am more than proud to see that the first ever second gentleman will be her Jewish husband Doug Emhoff, the first Jewish vice presidential or presidential spouse of either gender. Harris endears herself to the Jewish community by noting that his children call her the Yiddish diminutive “Mamele.”

Taken together, Harris represents a celebration of the diverse mosaic that makes America so vibrant. She exudes sheer joy in public service, making good trouble, and being on the side of history that brings greater justice to all. The way to make change is to make change. To see the potential for change. To be the change. To acknowledge the importance of that change and what it means for the future. It’s never a one and done.

But for now, this picture tells the story.

And one more thing: The struggles for equality by the various groups Harris represents — and that we know will get pushback from those who don’t share the values of a pluralistic democracy — confirm that Take The Lead’s leadership development, training, and coaching programs are more needed and more important than ever to advance gender and racial equality. Contact me at takethelead@taketheleadwomen.com to learn more about how we can help you as an individual or your organization reach leadership parity. Now is the time.

GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker and expert women’s leadership developer for companies that want to build gender balance, and a bestselling author of four books, most recently No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power. Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she teaches “Women, Power, and Leadership” at Arizona State University and is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Tweet Gloria Feldt.