Kamala Harris, left, with her sister, Maya, and mother, Shyamala

Shyamala Gopalan fought for racial equality and instilled political activism in her daughters. "My mother had been raised in a household where political activism and civic leadership came naturally," Harris wrote in The Truths We Hold. "She was conscious of history, conscious of struggle, conscious of inequities. She was born with a sense of justice imprinted on her soul."