American presidential hopeful, Kamala Harris, has called her pastor, Rev. Amos Brown of Third Baptist Church, San Francisco, to ask for prayer to actualize her bid.
Harris, incumbent vice president, was nominated late July, after President Joe Biden dropped his presidential ambition and endorsed her for the November election after a disastrous debate with Donald Trump raising doubts about his (Biden) fitness for office.
“She said to me, ‘pastor, I called because I want you to pray for me, (my husband) Doug, this country’ and finally she said ‘and the race I am intending to run for president,” Brown told Sojourner.
Harris is the nominee of the Democratic Party for the race. She recently picked Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate.
Christian Post reports that Rev. Brown, who has pastored Third Baptist Church since 1976, has known the vice president for over 20 years.
He encouraged Harris to run for president this year and prayed with her. The clergyman also quoted from Micah 6:8, asking her to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your maker.”
Brown has been supportive of Harris’ political career and had attended her inauguration as vice president in 2021.
Last year, she wrote about the pastor on Instagram, “It is always an honour to spend time with my pastor, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco.”
In 2022, during the NACAAP National Convention, she said, “I just want to, if you don’t mind for a moment, take a moment of personal privilege to talk about Dr Brown. He has been on this journey with me every step of the way, from when I first thought about running for public office almost two decades ago.
“And he has been such a voice of leadership, more leadership, and leadership in our nation. And so I want to thank you, Dr Brown, for all that you are – all that you are.”
Born about 59 years ago (October, 1954), Kamala is the second black woman ever elected to the US Senate and the first black woman to be vice president.
She has biracial identity. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan was Indian while her father, Donald Harris, is Jamaican. They both migrated to the United States to pursue doctorate degrees at the University of California, Berkeley, where they met and later married.