Long before she took the stage Monday at the United Center as the Democratic presidential nominee, a very young Kamala Harris was twirling around a house in Evanston, 8 miles to the north.
Born in California in 1964, Harris owes his Illinois connection to his parents’ careers in academia.
After a stint in Urbana-Champaign while both parents worked at the University of Illinois, the Harris family moved to Northwestern University in Evanston.
There, Harris’s father, Donald Harris, was an assistant professor of economics during the 1967-68 academic year. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, was an employee of the Department of Biological Sciences, according to Northwestern archives.
In Evanston, they lived in a house at 620 Library Place, just west of Sheridan Road along the edge of campus.
Now, nearly 60 years after the family lived there, Harris hopes to become the first woman — and the first black woman and the first Asian American — to be elected president.
And her former residence?
It is now home to the university’s African studies program.
The front of the house looks unchanged, although an addition at the back accommodates classes, lecture halls and student gatherings.
Kelly Coffey, a business administrator in the African Studies program, works in the building.
She knew that before the program moved into the house, it had been used as housing for professors and their families. But she said until recently staff had no idea of the Harris connection.
“I thought, ‘Oh, that’s a surprise,'” Coffey said. “How neat.”