Fact check: Trump’s lie that Harris ‘all of a sudden’ embraced a Black identity

Washington CNN —

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, drew gasps on Wednesday when he said at the National Association of Black Journalists convention that Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, had suddenly adopted a Black identity.

Harris’ father is from Jamaica, her late mother from India. Trump claimed: “I’ve known her a long time, indirectly, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian, or is she Black?”

As one of the journalists who was interviewing Trump on stage tried to tell him that Harris had always identified as Black and had attended a historically Black college, Trump continued, “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she went – she became a Black person. And I think somebody should look into that, too.”

Trump’s comments prompted immediate bipartisan criticism. Leaving aside the issue of the appropriateness of the remarks, his claims are just not true.

Facts First: Trump’s claims are false. Harris did not “all of a sudden” begin identifying as Black. She has embraced and discussed her Black identity for decades, beginning long before she became a political candidate, while also honoring her South Asian heritage.

Harris graduated in 1986 from Howard University, a historically Black institution where she was a member of a historically Black sorority. After that, she was elected president of the association of Black law students in