Clara Harris to Be Inducted Into the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame

One of Lemon Grove’s very own will soon be inducted into the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame.

Clara Harris, who has resided in Lemon Grove for almost 50 years, is one of six local women who will be honored at the 10th annual ceremony on March 12 at San Diego State University's Alumni Center.

Harris, 79, was selected for the "Builder of Multicultural Understanding” award for her work toward improving the lives of women, promoting fair housing and speaking out against discrimination.

The Women’s Hall of Fame is organized in collaboration by the Women’s Museum of California, the Women’s Studies Department at SDSU, the Women’s Center at UC San Diego and the San Diego County Commission on the Status of Women.

The remaining honorees include the late Margaret Costanza, the first woman to be appointed as assistant to the president of the United States; Judy Forman, an activist and owner of the Big Kitchen Café; Rita Sanchez, who taught the first Chicana course at Stanford University; Martha W. Longenecker, the founder of the San Diego Mingei International Museum; and Donna Frye, former San Diego City Council member.

“I sort of feel like an imposter when I look at the women on that list,” said Harris, who has lived in Lemon Grove since 1962.

For 20 years, Harris served as the executive director of Heartland Human Relations and Fair Housing Association, which is now known as the Center for Social Advocacy.

Founded in 1969, the nonprofit organization is one of San Diego’s oldest civil and human rights organizations. 

As executive director, Harris advocated for fair housing and mediated tenant and landlord issues.

“I have this sense of fairness in my heart,” Harris said. “I have this sense of making sure that everybody gets an opportunity that is equal. If people want to live in a neighborhood, I think they should be able to.”

Harris began at Heartland Human Relations and Fair Housing Association in 1972, when the nonprofit performed its first real estate audit. She became a board member in 1980 and the executive director in 1983.

Many complaints of discrimination came from women, Harris explained. In one case, a local African-American journalist reported she was discriminated against by the manager of a La Mesa apartment complex. Harris remembers visiting the complex to personally test the manager. She learned firsthand that nonwhites were not welcome.

“Boy did I get an earful,” she said. “The manager said, ‘This is a nice building. It’s all nice people.’ I was so taken aback.”

After the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development got involved and discrimination continued, HUD eventually persuaded the property owner to sell the building.

“The laws didn’t get enforced in those days, but now, there’s fair housing all over,” Harris said. “Thank God for that!

“That is what I’m grateful for—that the work we did back in those days when discrimination was rampant to today—there’s teeth in the law.”

Although she retired from the nonprofit in 2003, Harris continues to work as a contracted consultant promoting equal opportunity and fair housing.

In addition, Harris is actively involved in other organizations, including the La Mesa Sunrise Rotary Club. She is the Rotary district’s outreach chair of the Pathways to Peace Committee, among other roles.

The Pathways to Peace Committee organizes peacemaking activities, such as World Understanding Month.

Harris is also an advisory board member for the Jessie Program, which she helped create.

The Jessie Program, which is a joint effort by the San Diego County Office of Education, Juvenile Court and the San Diego Probation Department, provides mentoring to girls ages 15 to 18 in Juvenile Hall.

“Our main goal is to make sure that these young women get fair treatment when they get out and give them support so they won’t wind up back in Juvenile Hall or the big prison system,” she said.

In 1981, Harris served on a jury in a case involving a 20-year-old African-American man. There were no African-Americans on the jury, Harris explained.

“People on that jury had no clue about people of color. From the very first day, they started arguing for ‘We all know they lie for each other, don’t we? We all know they carry knives and guns.’

“At that point, I just decided I’m going to do something about this.”

Harris didn’t go to college until she was 40. She began taking classes at Grossmont Community College in the 1970s and transferred to SDSU, where she earned her bachelor’s in social work in 1980. In 1983, she graduated with a master's in counseling from SDSU.

“I always wanted to go to school,” she said. “I was raised in the South were women didn’t go to college unless they were from very rich families.”

Education has remained an important value in Harris’ family. In fact, her daughter and three granddaughters are teachers in the Ramona Unified School District.

“Education, to me, is the most valuable thing that we can ever have,” Harris said. “It is the only thing that we can have that no one can ever take from us. You may lose your money, you may lose your friends, you may lose your family, but you won’t ever lose what’s in your head.”

From an early age, Harris learned about discrimination. She grew up in Tennessee, near the Tennessee-Virginia boundary, and remembers segregation.

“My grandmother and my mother were really the people that taught me that the color of your skin does not mean that there’s anything wrong with you, it just means that some people view it as something being wrong with you,” Harris said. “I had an opportunity to meet people who I learned were good people, people of color.”

At times, Harris has been harassed because of her lifelong work fighting against discrimination. 

“I learned so much from that,” she said. “I really believe in this life that we are in particular situations at particular times because we need to learn about something important so we can use it. I feel that I needed to learn what it felt like to be singled out for harassment. They were harassing me because of the work I did.”

In one instance, Harris and others were harassed by white supremacists in early 2000.

“These people, who did not want to see people of color move to the East County at all, decided they’d teach me a lesson,” Harris explained. “They taught me a lot of lessons, but I taught them some as it went along because it didn’t stop me.”

Throughout the years, Harris has received numerous awards for her work, including the California Women in Government Award in 1987 and El Cajon’s Woman of the Year in 1993.

Despite her many accomplishments, she was still surprised when the Women’s Museum of California contacted her regarding her induction into the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame.

“I’m just delighted,” Harris said. “I’m absolutely delighted to be getting this award.”