CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Crystal Howard suffered through the long and sometimes grueling wait the past week watching the election numbers come in.

“I never thought it was going to take this long,” Howard says.

But when news broke of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, reaction was quick.

“Immediately I was ecstatic...I feel like her holding office like that would be a win for all women of color, all HBCU students,” Howard says.

Howard is a senior at Johnson C. Smith University which is a historically black university in Charlotte.

Harris graduated from Howard University which is also a HBCU.

Harris' passion for HBCUs and for Alpha Kappa Alpha, of which she was a member, is something Harris talks about a lot.

“The fact that we now had President Obama, the first African American of the United States and now the first woman of color in Kamala Harris, you can look to them as example that maybe that can be me one day,” JCSU President Clarence Armbrister says.

Harris, whose parents are from India and Jamaica, will also be the first woman and first woman of color vice president.

“The fact that we have Kamala, and these young boys and girls can see themselves in her, and what they can be, and do so, it makes us at parents and grandparents super proud,” Democratic Congresswoman Alma Adams says.

Howard says it may inspire young women of color to also eye politics.

“I feel like by seeing her and the way she is excelling, I think it will definitely give a lot of women of color that have the will to do that to carry on,” Howard says.