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As Vice President Kamala Harris fired up voters in Detroit and Atlanta this weekend, some of her most fervent backers were just two miles from her home in the District of Columbia, where her alma mater, Howard University, celebrated its 100th homecoming.
The historically Black college, known to its alumni as “The Mecca,” was hosting a week of events bringing thousands of alumni from all over the country to its campus for parties and a concert before its marquee football game. Ms. Harris did not attend this year, campaigning instead in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia while avoiding the complicated security logistics of taking a sitting vice president and presidential candidate to a major event.
But on and off campus, excitement for the prospect of the nation’s first Black woman — and H.B.C.U. graduate — as president was palpable. Students posed for photos with cardboard cutouts of Ms. Harris’s face at a booth on the university’s main yard. Vendors selling T-shirts with Ms. Harris’s photo and noteworthy quotations lined Georgia Avenue, the main street leading to Howard’s campus. After the annual parade, the Harris campaign hosted alumni at a rally for her.
Yet in the final weeks of the presidential race, the vice president’s candidacy is also the subject of much anxiety. While most alumni said they were overjoyed to see one of their own heading a presidential ticket, they were eyeing the razor-thin margins of the race nervously. It has spurred even more to scramble to organize on her behalf.
“I am itching with excitement deep inside for our fellow Bison, who is atop the ticket for the most powerful position in the most amazing country in the world,” Christina Weaver Jackson, the host of a “Bison for Kamala” fund-raiser at her home in the District of Columbia, told its attendees on Thursday. “I’m also very nervous.”
The actor Anthony Anderson, himself a Howard alumnus, headlined the fund-raiser. After pointing to QR codes with fund-raising links plastered around the space, he reminded guests that the most important work they could do was what Howard alumni do best: network. That is, talk to the unenthusiastic voters in their life to cast a ballot — preferably for their fellow alumna.
“I believe Kamala Harris is running on the right side of politics in this election as compared to what’s on the other side,” Mr. Anderson said in an interview on the sidelines of the fund-raiser. “And it’s not because she’s Black, it’s not because she’s a woman, it’s not because she’s a Bison.”
Presidential candidates have long tried to tie themselves to H.B.C.U.s, often referring to the work they have done on behalf of the schools as examples of policy results for Black voters. This year, Donald J. Trump and Ms. Harris have promoted increased funding to the institutions under their administrations — in a letter to the university on Saturday, Ms. Harris underlined the White House’s $17 billion investment.
But with Ms. Harris leading the Democratic presidential ticket, the institutions have emerged as key organizing forces. Her campaign has taken notice: This month, it initiated an H.B.C.U. homecoming tour to deploy surrogates to historically Black campuses across battleground states to mobilize Black voters there.
Jonathan Barnes, 33, a Howard Ph.D. student who posed with pro-Harris signs on campus, said he planned to support Ms. Harris. He also understood some of the reticence to support her from some young voters who disagree with her.
“My personal stance is, Kamala is our best choice right now,” he said, adding that his message to some voters who were still wary of her was, “Give her the chance and adjust your perspective from there.”
Ms. Harris’s candidacy has also given rise to scores of fund-raising outfits to mobilize Black voters on her behalf. The “Bison for Kamala” group will have raised more than $250,000 for her campaign by the end of this year’s homecoming weekend, according to its co-founder Stefanie Brown James, who also is a co-founder of the Collective PAC to support Black candidates for office.
Several other groups, including Divine Nine Black Greek-letter organizations, have pledged to increase their voter engagement work this year. After forming a coalition with other Black sororities and fraternities, Alpha Kappa Alpha, the sorority that Ms. Harris joined while a student at Howard, formed a PAC to donate directly to her campaign. The PAC has raised more than $900,000 in the last two months, according to a Federal Election Commission report. Many of the donations were made in increments of $19.08 — a nod to the organization’s founding year.
Ms. Harris graduated from Howard in 1986, and the university has been something of a safe space for her amid her political rise. After being named President Biden’s vice-presidential candidate in 2020, she took up a temporary office at Founders Library in the heart of Howard’s campus. After Mr. Biden dropped out of the race in July, she made calls to allies wearing a Howard sweatshirt. As a presidential candidate, she practiced for the race’s only debate at the university, in its Cramton Auditorium.
Near campus on Saturday, the Harris campaign passed out water bottles, signs and T-shirts as crowds of alumni walked to the main yard. Organizers encouraged attendees to knock on doors and make calls for Ms. Harris and passed out cards for voters to complete saying they would commit to voting.
But despite an active network of students and alumni supporting her candidacy, Howard itself has been less apt to publicly endorse her. The university has been forced to walk a thin line between expressing support for its alumni in politics without endorsing any candidate — a move that could jeopardize the federal funds that account for more than one-third of its operating budget.
But scores of Howard alumni have used Ms. Harris’s candidacy as a chance to get involved as a means of showing pride in their university and one of its most famous alumni.
“I can’t say ‘I go to Howard’ enough,” said Tonya McCray, a labor union employee who said she had been canvassing in her hometown, Waldorf, Md., for Ms. Harris for weeks and wore a Howard shirt emblazoned with “VOTE.” She said she had tried to stay positive amid tightening poll numbers and some unfriendly interactions she had had with voters during canvasses. But she still expressed confidence in Ms. Harris’s prospects.
“Never mind the fact that she’s going to be president — our first Black female president — but the fact of what she’s accomplished already just adds that extra level of confidence,” Ms. McCray said.
Alan Blinder contributed reporting from Atlanta.
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