But I just had this moment of, like, this is too much. “I was raised in a family where I was taught with how to deal with these challenges of being called too ambitious. Meena Harris's newest book, "Ambitious Girl." Meena Harris There was such an intense focus on women, ‘are we gonna break the glass ceiling?’ all the headlines the next day were like ‘Are Women Gonna Fight Back?’ and ‘Are they going to continue to show up?’ Maya Angela’s poem has always been an inspiration to me so I decided to put it on a tee-shirt, and it was a really small idea when I launched it, and that moment that I could look back on where I launched Phenomenal, it was never supposed to be more than a one-month fundraiser campaign for female organizations,” explained Harris. I also felt a fighting spirit, even though we had lost and it was not the outcome I wanted, I felt an urge to do something and most of all to lift up women. I think like a lot of people I was trying to find my own personal contribution and felt that responsibility, I frankly felt a little bit of guilt and regret the next day after the election, wondering if I could have done anything more. “I launched Phenomenal after the 2016 Election. It wasn’t until after the 2016 election that Harris started Phenomenal, an organization that brings awareness to social causes with fans like Gabrielle Union, Kerry Washington and Serena Williams. It was rather something that I was around all the time and it was very much the perspective of activism, politics and public service law.”Īlthough Harris pivoted from Law to the tech industry working at companies like Uber she continued to use her passion for law as an activist. But, no one said, you have to become like your mom and aunt or we expect you to follow in our footsteps. So that definitely influenced me, I often say that often to my family’s credit, they never pressured me to become a lawyer it was always something, on education and excellence and achievement. “A law degree is a powerful tool to fight for your community, to fight for equity and equality. So similarly for me, especially for my mom and aunt, I was able to see what good you could do in the world with a law degree,” Harris shared. The lawyers often were the heroes fighting in court and using the law to achieve or to fight for racial equality. My aunt actually talks about this a lot, in terms of, how she was raised and what inspired her, in the 60’s. Although, my grandmother was not a lawyer, all of her friends including our extended family, who were in the civil rights movement, they, too were lawyers. “As a child, I thought and aspired to be a lawyer, and that’s in large part because of my family where I was surrounded by lawyers. Growing up in a family of strong women, Harris had ambition instilled in her very early on which led her to go after her law degree.
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