Kamala Harris will spend election night at Howard University

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, will host an election night event next Tuesday at her alma mater, Howard University, a university spokesperson confirmed in an email to Within Higher Ed.

The Harris-Walz campaign will host an event on campus once the votes come in. Classes will be held remotely on Mondays and canceled on Tuesdays to encourage student voting. according to The HilltopHoward’s student newspaper. The campus is closed to the public on Tuesday.

The historically black university in Washington, D.C., has been a key part of Harris’ candidacy since she announced in July that she would replace President Biden. Her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, has done just that mobilized alumni members to campaign for her, and she had a debate prep session there in August before her debate against Republican nominee Donald Trump. When she announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in 2019, she did so from Howard.

Harris’ alma mater has long had one special place in her life– and the story of her path to the vice presidency. In her memoir, she wrote that at Howard, “You didn’t have to be confined to the box of someone else’s choice.”

“At Howard,” she wrote, “you could come as you were and leave as the person you wanted to be.”

On Tuesday evening, she will be allowed to leave campus as the first HBCU graduate to be elected president of the United States.