South Mills native Harris discusses Capitol Hill career in new autobiography

In her new autobiography, June L. Harris discusses how life led her, “From South Mills to Congress.”

“From South Mills to Congress” is the title of Harris’ book that is planned for release on Amazon by the end of the year.

The autobiography is “the journey of my life from South Mills to all over,” said Harris, who grew up in South Mills and later became a congressional staff member. She was discussing the book during a discussion hosted by the JW Hood Consistory No. 155 last month at the Hugh Cale Community Center.

Harris grew up in South Mills, where she attended the Rosenwald School, a period when schools were still segregated. She later graduated from the all-Black Marian Anderson High School, which today is the home of Camden County Middle School.

Harris, who is a retired teacher, said her early education set her on a course for success.

“As I have told everybody, I had the best foundation academically that helped me compete at higher levels,” she said. “I could name for you some of the teachers in my elementary school, as well as my high school, that I credit them, along with my parents for the foundation, because I felt that I could compete with anybody I met academically.”

Harris later attended N.C. Central University in Durham, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in business education. She earned a master of arts degree from Atlanta College, now known as Clark College, and a doctorate from the University of Maryland at College Park.

“At that time, the University of Maryland had 40,000 students, but only 3 percent were African American,” Harris said.

While a student at UMCP, Harris was appointed president of the executive board of the campus’s Black Ministries program.

“That’s the advantage of spreading your wings and going to college,” Harris said. “Because you get to network and get to meet people and you find that, boy, it’s kind of different from the life that you’ve lived because of the opportunities that present themselves.”

Harris served several years as a congressional staff member to U.S. Rep. William Clay, D-Missouri, who served in Congress from 1969 to 2001.

As a staff member, Harris was appointed to the Congressional Committee on Education and Labor and was later named policy coordinator for the former Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities, according to a biography of her career.

Also in that role, Harris traveled the United States and the world extensively, meeting with ranking education officials and discussing educational policies and practices.

“I have been to every state in the United States except North Dakota,” she said.

She also traveled with a special interest group known at the time as the American Youth Policy Forum.

“The first place I went was the Republic of China — Taiwan — to look at their education program,” she said.

She talks more about her trips abroad as a congressional delegate in her book, she said.

During her trip to Taiwan, Harris met with the island nation’s minister of foreign affairs, minister of foreign trade and other government affairs representatives.

“All of my foreign travels were to view — I’m an educator — were to view the country’s educational system,” she said. “That was quite, quite a learning and enjoyable experience and that’s all in my book.”

Harris was also appointed by then Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill Jr., D-Massachusetts, to the Congressional Select Committee on Committees, which was formed to review Congress’ exhaustive system of committees and sub-committees.

“He appointed me to be on that committee and then it only lasted a year,” she said. “The committee lasted a year and didn’t do much changing because it’s hard to take somebody’s committee away.”

Harris described the committee as one of her more significant experiences while working on Capitol Hill.

According to Harris, several people questioned why she included South Mills in the title of her book, considering many people outside northeastern North Carolina may not have heard of the small unincorporated community.

“I said, ‘This is my book and South Mills is my home where I earned my beginning, which I am proud of,’” she said.

The book cover’s illustration includes the South Mills home that Harris was born and raised in. That house is still standing today.