Monique Poydras was at a reggae concert at a vineyard in Linganore, Maryland, when her phone began vibrating frantically. As text after text and call after call rolled in, the device continued to shake until it eventually fell off the chair.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, what in the world?’” Poydras recalled saying to herself.
She checked her phone, and that’s when the cause of the pandemonium came into focus. Kamala Harris had just announced her run for president, and Poydras’ circle wanted to discuss the news.
Soon, other concertgoers started scrolling on their phones as alerts of the news poured in, and some of the excited murmurings of the group, Poydras said, swelled into one collective exclamation: “Oh my God, Kamala is in.”
“It was just the best feeling,” Poydras said, remembering the way the women around her, particularly moved by the announcement, responded with glee. “And we were like, ‘Oh, we’re about to mobilize like people have never seen in this country before,’” she added.
She stepped away from the booming music and proceeded to spend the following two hours on the phone talking about and celebrating the moment.
Poydras, an attorney and vice president of a minority engineering and technology firm, isn’t just another of Harris’ supporters. She and Harris go way back, back to the 1980s when they were college students at Howard University. Most importantly they were line sisters in Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the oldest sorority founded by African American women and one of the Divine Nine organizations.
Initiated into their chapter in the spring of 1986, Poydras, Harris and their 36 other line sisters made up the Jewels of Iridescent Splendor. When her phone had been blowing up at the concert, it was her line sisters calling to ask if she’d seen the news about their fellow Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Alpha sister.
When Poydras met Harris in college, the pair immediately found common ground. Like Harris, whose father is Jamaican and whose mother is Indian, Poydras, a New York native, is also of Caribbean and South Asian descent, and she immediately noticed the similarities.
“I just kind of knew because she looked like she could be in my family,” Poydras said.
Kamala Harris, front center, poses with her AKA sisters at Howard University in spring 1986. COURTESY PHOTO
Through Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Poydras and Harris became sisters, joining what is now a 116-year-old organization made up of over 360,000 members and 12 chapters worldwide, according to its website.
On campus, the line sisters participated in community service activities and, bolstered by the environment at Howard which encouraged them to speak their minds freely, they were also involved in social action. Poydras recalled she, Harris and her other line sisters protesting apartheid in South Africa.
Harris was “bright” with a sense of humor, Poydras said. She was also compassionate and cared for the “person out here just trying to make it.”
“What you see right now is what we saw,” Poydras said of Harris, just with a decades-long political career under her belt.
In the eyes of Kuae Noel Kelch, another one of the line sisters, Harris was serious and committed and “had a command of her senses.”
The young women in line were ordered by height and assigned a number that corresponded to their position. Kelch was number 31. Harris was 15, which meant she was shorter than Kelch, Kelch pointed out jokingly.
The women also had nicknames, and Harris’ poised personality earned her the tag of C-cubed, or C3, “which stood for ‘calm, cool and collected,’” said Kelch, vice president of media relations at Mercury Public Affairs and national president of nonprofit Mocha Moms. “Everybody knew that Kamala was calm and cool and collected under stress, under deadlines, under anything that we had to do together.”
Each of the women in the line had their strengths, and each had a role to play in the sorority’s activities. Some were good at math while others excelled in communications or organizing.
“Kamala had leadership from the very beginning. We saw it and we knew it,” Kelch said, citing Harris’ strength, resolve, dignity and confidence as her other standout qualities.
For Kelch, Harris’s ascension to the political peak “feels like a full circle moment, she said. The women in their line are the daughters of people who fought in the Civil Rights Movement and had big dreams for their children.
Kamala Harris, left, poses with her AKA sisters Lisa and Tony when they were students at Howard University. PHOTO: 38 JEWELS OF IRIDESCENT SPLENDOR SPRING 1986 PHOTO ARCHIVES
When Kelch and her line sisters arrived on Howard’s campus as “extensions of our parents” and signed up for various activities, they too “had the sense that we were running a cause greater than our own. We weren’t just there to study and party and have fun; we were there to make an impact in our lives.”
One of Kelch’s line sisters tells a story of how Harris used to walk around campus with a briefcase. While Kelch said she didn’t see the briefcase herself, she wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. Harris took her duties seriously and, armed with the leadership skills and confidence instilled in Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. members, “it is no wonder that my sister has risen to this level. We always knew it was possible,” Kelch said.
Since they all graduated from Howard in the mid-80s, Kelch, Poydras and their other line sisters have stayed in touch, following each other’s careers and regularly meeting over Zoom.
While Harris might be too busy to join their catch-up calls, the line sisters have kept a keen eye on her career, watching as Harris made huge career strides from attorney general to junior senator to holding the most powerful leadership position ever held by a woman in American history.
Harris is just a few weeks into her presidential campaign, but Poydras already sees the momentum the vice presidential incumbent has gained.
“A lot of people look at her and hear what she says,” she said. “And they understand the message. And they understand that she’s for the people, that she’s fighting for democracy, and that she understands that democracy is under attack, and she’s willing to go toe to toe to make sure that we have our rights intact.”
The line sisters have supported Harris along the way, including fundraising for her short-lived presidential run in 2020. Now, as Harris swings for the position once again, Kelch said, the sisters plan to continue to stand by her.
“This is the big league,” Kelch said, and Harris’ line sisters and fellow Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. members have kicked their mobilizing into full gear. They have already been fundraising for the campaign and mobilizing for voter registration, and dozens of them plan to attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week.
Given Harris’ hope, optimism, “energy and exuberance” and her “ability to strategize,” Kelch said she thinks the second time could be the charm.
“I have a really, really good feeling that this is the right time for the country, that the country is ready, open and willing to vote Kamala Harris,” Kelch said. “And I also have a really strong feeling — I’m deeply confident — that she is ready for the United States.”
