'Not our America'

Lamenting that the American Dream and its democracy are under attack in Donald Trump's United States, California Senator Kamala Harris formally declared Sunday her candidacy to become the country's first black female president in 2020.

Harris, who was California's attorney general from 2011 to 2017, made her announcement to supporters outside city hall in Oakland, San Francisco's grittier neighbor where she was born.

"We are here because the American dream and our American democracy are under attack and on the line like never before," she said.

"When democratic values are under attack around the globe, when authoritarianism is on the march, when nuclear proliferation is on the rise, when we have foreign powers infecting the White House like malware, let's speak the truth," she added to raucous applause.

Harris, whose father is from Jamaica and whose mother is a Tamil Indian, said that "in the face of powerful forces trying to sow hate and division among us, the truth is that as Americans, we have so much more in common than what separates us."

Referring to racist-inspired deadly violence in the country, Harris said "that's not our America," and neither is it when "we have leaders who bully and attack a free press and undermine our democratic institutions."