Harris monitors election results at alma mater Howard University

Kamala Harris will spend election night at Howard University, her alma mater and a historically black university in Washington DC.

The Democratic presidential candidate graduated from Howard University in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in political science and economics.

She maintains close relationships with the school and often describes her four years there as the most formative of her life.

Howard President Ben Vinson III said it was the first time in modern history that a presidential election monitoring party had been held on a university campus.

Mr Vinson said the university was already “incredibly proud” that the first woman of color to serve as vice president was among its graduates.

“We are also honored that she chose Howard as the place where she can potentially make history again.”

Classes were canceled on Tuesday to give students the best possible opportunity to vote.

Harris supporters gathered outside the school before the watch party began.

Among them was Cheryl Taylor, the former Howard student who enlisted Harris as a freshman to join Alpha Kappa Alpha, the country's first black sorority, founded at Howard in 1908.

Members of AKA and other Black sororities form a tight-knit national network that has helped propel Harris' presidential candidacies this year and in 2019.

Even at the age of 19, Ms. Taylor told the BBC, Harris had already emerged as a leader.

“She was great. Beautiful, smart, a good person,” she said.

Ms. Taylor was moved by Harris' decision to hold a wake party at Howard, saying it was a recognition of the school's importance in her journey and the place that showed her the power of “black excellence.”

And she shrugged off attacks targeting Harris' racial identity, including from Donald Trump, who questioned her Blackness.

“We’re not questioning that here,” she said.

“It is mind-blowing that one of our Howardite colleagues is rising to this level and is also a woman,” she added. “I’m just so happy to be here tonight.”

First-time voter and freshman student Kendall Claytor waited with her friends to get in and described Harris as a role model.

“As a black woman, I really look up to her,” she said.

“You know, knowing that she comes from the same place, that she slept in the same dorms as me, that she went to the same school, took the same classes and that she made it this far. I think that speaks volumes for us students.”

William Ward, 65, played music for the crowd from the back seat of his bicycle.

“I will be 66 years old in December. I want to see history. I saw the Obamas go in, which is history. And now I’m going to see a woman walk in.”

Founded in 1867, Howard is nicknamed “The Mecca.” It is one of the largest and most academically rigorous historically black universities in the country.

It produces more black graduate students than any other university in the country and currently serves about 11,000 students.

Alumni also include former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael and actor Chadwick Boseman.

In her memoir “The Truths We Hold,” Harris described it as a place “you could come as you were and leave as the person you wanted to be.”