Vice President Kamala Harris broke the barrier that has kept men at the top ranks of power for over two centuries when she took the oath on Wednesday to hold the nation’s second-highest office. Hours after she was sworn in as the first female US vice president — and the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent in the role — she cast the moment as one that embodied “American aspiration.”

“Even in dark times we not only dream, we do. We not only see what has been, we see what can be,” she said in brief remarks outside the Lincoln Memorial. “We are bold, fearless and ambitious. We are undaunted in our belief that we shall overcome, that we will rise up.”