07 November 2008
Meet the Obama Family
The following is excerpted from the U.S. Department of State publication Barack Obama: 44th President of the United States.
The Obamas are the first African American family to move into the White House.
President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, are well aware of the historic significance of his election and what it means to many Americans. In her campaign stump speech, Mrs. Obama often mentioned a 10-year-old girl she met in a South Carolina beauty shop who told her that if Barack Obama were elected president, “it means that I can imagine anything for myself.”
“She could have been me,” Mrs. Obama told Newsweek magazine. “Because the truth is, I’m not supposed to be here, standing here. I’m a statistical oddity. Black girl, brought up on the South Side of Chicago. Was I supposed to go to Princeton? No. … They said maybe Harvard Law was too much for me to reach for. But I went, I did fine. And I’m certainly not supposed to be standing here.”
The first lady was born Michelle Robinson and raised in a working-class family in Chicago, Illinois. Her father worked at the municipal water department and was a Democratic precinct captain, while her mother was a stay-at-home mom who took care of her and her older brother, Craig.
Michelle Robinson worked hard in school and landed a spot in the Princeton University class of 1985. After earning an undergraduate degree in sociology with a minor in African-American studies, she attended Harvard Law School.
Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson met in 1989 when she, then an associate at the Chicago, Illinois, law firm Sidley & Austin, was assigned to mentor Obama, who was a summer intern.
The future president asked her to attend one of his community organizing sessions in Chicago. She accepted and attended a meeting, where she told Newsweek that he spoke to participants about closing the gap between “the world as it is, and the world as it should be.”
Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama continued to date, and the couple married in 1992. The Obamas share a passion for public service and have devoted much of their adult lives to careers in the public sector.
After leaving the corporate law practice where they met, Mrs. Obama held several positions in Chicago government, and she was founding executive director of Public Allies — Chicago, an organization that encourages young people to pursue public service jobs. Most recently, she served as vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
“She certainly seems to be someone who would take advantage of the podium the White House affords her,” said Dr. Myra Gutin, historian and professor of communications at Rider University in New Jersey. “She is bright, she is articulate, and she has professional experiences in management.”
The Obamas hope that their enthusiasm for public service and their extensive professional experience and achievements will help them deal with the challenges ahead. Behind Barack Obama’s desire to be president and have a positive impact on the world are his young daughters, Malia, born in 1998, and Sasha (short for Natasha), born in 2001. The girls are the youngest inhabitants of the White House since Amy Carter, who was nine years old when her father, Jimmy Carter, was elected president in 1976.
“My life revolves around my two girls,” then Senator Obama said in a Father’s Day speech at a Chicago church. “And what I think about is what kind of world I’m leaving them. What I’ve realized is that life doesn’t count for much unless you’re willing to do your small part to leave our children — all of our children — a better world. That is our ultimate responsibility as fathers and parents.”
