FLOTUS: Michelle Obama Part I

 

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as the first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017, being married to former president Barack Obama.

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. In her early legal career, she worked at the law firm Sidley Austin where she met her future husband. She subsequently worked in nonprofits and as the associate dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago. Later she served as, vice president for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Michelle married Barack in 1992 and they have two daughters.

Obama campaigned for her husband's presidential bid throughout 2007 and 2008, delivering a keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She has subsequently delivered acclaimed speeches at the 2012, 2016, and 2020 conventions. As first lady, Obama served as a role model for women and worked as an advocate for poverty awareness, education, nutrition, physical activity, and healthy eating. She supported American designers and was considered a fashion icon. Obama was the first African-American woman to serve as first lady.

After her husband's presidency, Obama's influence has remained high. In 2020, she topped Gallup's poll of the most admired woman in America for the third year running.

Family and Education

Early life and ancestry

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson was born on January 17, 1964, in Chicago, Illinois, to Fraser Robinson III (1935–1991), a city water plant employee and Democratic precinct captain, and Marian Shields Robinson (b. July 30, 1937), a secretary at Spiegel's catalog store. Her mother was a full-time homemaker until Michelle entered high school.

The Robinson and Shields families trace their roots to pre-Civil War African Americans in the American South. On her father's side, she is descended from the Gullah people of South Carolina's Low Country region. Her paternal great-great-grandfather, Jim Robinson, was born into slavery in 1850 on Friendfield Plantation, near Georgetown, South Carolina. He became a freedman at age 15 after the war. Some of Obama's paternal family still resides in the Georgetown area. Her grandfather Fraser Robinson, Jr., built his own house in South Carolina. He and his wife LaVaughn (née Johnson) returned to the Low country from Chicago after retirement.

Among her maternal ancestors was her great-great-great-grandmother, Melvinia Dosey Shields, born into slavery in South Carolina but sold to Henry Walls Shields, who had a 200-acre farm in Clayton County, Georgia, near Atlanta. Melvinia's first son, Adolphus T. Shields, was biracial and born into slavery around 1860. Based on DNA and other evidence, in 2012 researchers said his father was likely 20-year-old Charles Marion Shields, son of Melvins's master. They may have had a continuing relationship, as she had two more mixed-race children and lived near Shields after emancipation, taking his surname (she later changed her surname).

As was often the case, Melvinia did not talk to relatives about Dolphus's father. Dolphus Shields, with his wife Alice, moved to Birmingham, Alabama, after the Civil War. They were great-great-grandparents of Michelle Robinson, whose grandparents had moved to Chicago. Other of their children's lines migrated to Cleveland, Ohio, in the 20th century.

All four of Robinson's grandparents had multiracial ancestors, reflecting the complex history of the U.S. Her extended family has said that people did not talk about the era of slavery when they were growing up. Her distant ancestry includes Irish, English, and Native American roots. Among her contemporary extended family is Rabbi Capers Funnye; born in Georgetown, South Carolina. Funnye is the son of her grandfather Robinson's sister and her husband, and he is about 12 years older than Michelle. Funnye converted to Judaism after college. He is a paternal first cousin once removed.

Robinson's childhood home was on the upper floor of 7436 South Euclid Avenue in Chicago's South Shore community area, which her parents rented from her great-aunt, who had the first floor. She was raised in what she describes as a "conventional" home, with "the mother at home, the father works, and you have dinner around the table". Her elementary school was down the street. She and her family enjoyed playing games such as Monopoly, and reading, and frequently saw extended family on both sides. She played piano, learning from her great-aunt, who was a piano teacher. The Robinsons attended services at nearby South Shore United Methodist Church. They used to vacation in a rustic cabin in White Cloud, Michigan. She and her 21-month-older brother, Craig, skipped the second grade.

Her father suffered from multiple sclerosis, which had a profound effect on her. Subsequently, she was determined to stay out of trouble and perform well in school. By sixth grade, Michelle joined a gifted class at Bryn Mawr Elementary School (later renamed Bouchet Academy). She attended Whitney Young High School, Chicago's first magnet high school, established as a selective enrollment school, where she was a classmate of Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita. The round-trip commute from the Robinsons' South Side home to the Near West Side, where the school was located, took three hours. Michelle recalled being fearful of how others would perceive her, but disregarded any negativity around her and used it "to fuel me, to keep me going". She recalled facing gender discrimination growing up, saying, for example, that rather than asking her for her opinion on a given subject, people commonly tended to ask what her older brother thought. She was on the honor roll for four years, took advanced placement classes, was a member of the National Honor Society, and served as student council treasurer. She graduated in 1981 as the salutatorian of her class.

Education and early career

Robinson was inspired to follow her brother to Princeton University, which she entered in 1981. She majored in sociology and minored in African-American studies, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in 1985 after completing a 99-page senior thesis titled "Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community" under the supervision of Walter Wallace.

Robinson recalls that some of her teachers in high school tried to dissuade her from applying and that she had been warned against "setting my sights too high". She believed her brother's status as a student in good standing (he graduated in 1983) may have helped her during the admission process, but she was resolved to demonstrate her own worth. She has said she was overwhelmed during her first year, attributing this to the fact that neither of her parents had graduated from college and that she had never spent time on a college campus.

The mother of a white roommate reportedly tried to get her daughter reassigned because of Michelle's race. Robinson said being at Princeton was the first time she became more aware of her ethnicity and, despite the willingness of her classmates and teachers to reach out to her, she still felt "like a visitor on campus". There were also issues of economic class. "I remember being shocked," she says, "by college students who drove BMWs. I didn't even know parents who drove BMWs."

While at Princeton, Robinson became involved with the Third World Center (now known as the Carl A. Fields Center), an academic and cultural group that supported minority students. She ran their daycare center, which also offered after-school tutoring for older children. She challenged the teaching methodology for French because she felt it should be more conversational. As part of her requirements for graduation, she wrote a sociology thesis, entitled Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community. She researched her thesis by sending a questionnaire to African-American graduates, asking them to specify when and how comfortable they were with their race before their enrollment at Princeton and how they felt about it when they were students and since then. Of the 400 alumni to whom she sent the survey, fewer than 90 responded. Her findings did not support her hope that the black alumni would still identify with the African-American community, even though they had attended an elite university and had the advantages that accrue to its graduates.

Robinson pursued professional study, earning her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Harvard Law School in 1988. By the time she applied for Harvard Law, biographer Bond wrote, her confidence had increased: "This time around, there was no doubt in her mind that she had earned her place". Her faculty mentor at Harvard Law was Charles Ogletree, who has said she had answered the question that had plagued her throughout Princeton by the time she arrived at Harvard Law: whether she would remain the product of her parents or keep the identity she had acquired at Princeton; she had concluded she could be "both brilliant and black".

At Harvard, Robinson participated in demonstrations advocating the hiring of professors who were members of minority groups. She worked for the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, assisting low-income tenants with housing cases. She is the third first lady with a postgraduate degree, after her two immediate predecessors, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush. She later said her education gave her opportunities beyond what she had ever imagined.

Family life

Michelle's mother Marian Robinson was a stay-at-home mother. Her father was Fraser C. Robinson III, who worked at the city's water purification plant. Robinson's father, Fraser, died from complications from his illness in March 1991. She would later say that although he was the "hole in my heart" and "loss in my scar", the memory of her father has motivated her each day since. Her friend Suzanne Alele died from cancer around this time as well. These losses made her think of her contributions toward society and how well she was influencing the world from her law firm, in her first job after law school. She considered this a turning point.

Robinson met Barack Obama when they were among the few African Americans at their law firm, Sidley Austin LLP (she has sometimes said only two, although others have noted that there were others in different departments). She was assigned to mentor him while he was a summer associate. Their relationship started with a business lunch and then a community organization meeting where he first impressed her.

Before meeting Obama, Michelle had told her mother she intended to focus solely on her career. The couple's first date was to Spike Lee's movie Do the Right Thing (1989). Barack Obama has said the couple had an "opposites attract" scenario in their initial interest in each other since Michelle had stability from her two-parent home while he was "adventurous". They married on October 3, 1992. After suffering a miscarriage, Michelle underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive their daughters Malia Ann (born 1998) and Natasha (known as Sasha, born 2001).

The Obama family home in Chicago

The Obama family lived on Chicago's South Side, where Barack taught at the University Of Chicago Law School. He was elected to the state senate in 1996 and to the US Senate in 2004. They chose to keep their residence in Chicago after Barack's election rather than move to Washington, DC, as they felt it was better for their daughters. Throughout her husband's 2008 campaign for US President, Michelle Obama made a "commitment to be away overnight only once a week – to campaign only two days a week and be home by the end of the second day" for their two daughters.

She once requested that her then-fiancé meet her prospective boss, Valerie Jarrett when considering her first career move; Jarrett became one of her husband's closest advisors. The marital relationship has had its ebbs and flows; the combination of an evolving family life and beginning political career led to many arguments about balancing work and family. Barack Obama wrote in his second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, that "Tired and stressed, we had little time for conversation, much less romance." Despite their family obligations and careers, they continued to try to schedule "date nights" while they lived in Chicago.

The Obamas' daughters attended the University Of Chicago Laboratory Schools, a private school. As a member of the school's board, Michelle fought to maintain diversity in the school when other board members connected with the University of Chicago tried to reserve more slots for children of the university faculty. This resulted in a plan to expand the school to increase enrollment. In Washington, DC, Malia and Sasha attended Sidwell Friends School, after also considering Georgetown Day School. In 2008, Michelle said in an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show that they did not intend to have any more children. The Obamas received advice from past first ladies Laura Bush, Rosalynn Carter, and Hillary Clinton about raising children in the White House. Marian Robinson, Michelle's mother, moved into the White House to assist with child care.

Religion

Michelle Obama was raised United Methodist and joined the Trinity United Church of Christ, a mostly black congregation of the Reformed denomination known as the United Church of Christ. She and Barack Obama were married there by Rev. Jeremiah Wright. On May 31, 2008, Barack and Michelle Obama announced that they had withdrawn their membership in Trinity United Church of Christ saying: "Our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own views."

The Obama family attended several different Protestant churches after moving to Washington D.C. in 2009, including Shiloh Baptist Church and St. John's Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square, known as the Presidents' Church. At the 49th African Methodist Episcopal Church's general conference, Michelle Obama encouraged the attendees to advocate for political awareness, saying, "To anyone who says that church is no place to talk about these issues, you tell them there is no place better – no place better because ultimately, these are not just political issues – they are moral issues, they're issues that have to do with human dignity and human potential, and the future we want for our kids and our grandkids."

Career

Following law school, Obama became an associate at the Chicago office of the law firm Sidley & Austin, where she met her future husband Barack. At the firm, she worked on marketing and intellectual property law. She continues to hold her law license, but as she no longer needs it for her work, she has kept it on a voluntary inactive status since 1993.

In 1991, she held public sector positions in the Chicago city government as an Assistant to the Mayor, and as Assistant Commissioner of Planning and Development. In 1993, she became executive director for the Chicago Office of Public Allies, a non-profit organization encouraging young people to work on social issues in nonprofit groups and government agencies. She worked there for nearly four years and set fundraising records for the organization that still stood twelve years after she had left. Obama later said she had never been happier in her life before working "to build Public Allies".

In 1996, Obama served as the Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago, where she developed the university's Community Service Center. In 2002, she began working for the University of Chicago Hospitals, first as executive director for community affairs and, beginning May 2005, as vice president for Community and External Affairs.

She continued to hold the University of Chicago Hospitals position during the primary campaign of 2008 but cut back to part-time to spend time with her daughters as well as work for her husband's election. She subsequently took a leave of absence from her job.

According to the couple's 2006 income tax return, her salary was $273,618 from the University Of Chicago Hospitals, while her husband had a salary of $157,082 from the United States Senate. The Obamas' total income was $991,296, which included $51,200 she earned as a member of the board of directors of TreeHouse Foods, and investments and royalties from his books.

Obama served as a salaried board member of TreeHouse Foods, Inc. (NYSE: THS), a major Wal-Mart supplier from shortly after her husband was seated in the Senate until she cut ties shortly after her husband announced his candidacy for the presidency; he criticized Wal-Mart labor policies at an AFL–CIO forum in Trenton, New Jersey, on May 14, 2007. She also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

In 2021, the former first lady announced that she has been "moving toward retirement". Though she continues to be active in political campaigns, the former first lady has said she is reducing the amount of work to spend more time with her husband.

Barack Obama's political campaigns

Early campaigns

During an interview in 1996, Michelle Obama acknowledged there was a "strong possibility" her husband would begin a political career, but said she was "wary" of the process. She knew it meant their lives would be subject to scrutiny and she was intensely private.

Although she campaigned on her husband's behalf since early in his political career by handshaking and fund-raising, she did not relish the activity at first. When she campaigned during her husband's 2000 run for United States House of Representatives, her boss at the University of Chicago asked if there was any single thing about campaigning that she enjoyed; after some thought, she replied that visiting so many living rooms had given her some new decorating ideas. Obama opposed her husband's run for the congressional seat, and, after his defeat, she preferred he tend to the financial needs of the family in what she deemed a more practical way.

2008 presidential campaign

At first, Obama had reservations about her husband's presidential campaign, due to fears about a possible negative effect on their daughters. She says she negotiated an agreement in which her husband was to quit smoking in exchange for her support of his decision to run. About her role in her husband's presidential campaign, she has said: "My job is not a senior adviser". During the campaign, she discussed race and education by using motherhood as a framework.

In May 2007, three months after her husband declared his presidential candidacy; Obama reduced her professional responsibilities by 80 percent to support his presidential campaign. Early in the campaign, she had limited involvement in which she traveled to political events only two days a week and rarely traveled overnight; by early February 2008, her participation had increased significantly. She attended thirty-three events in eight days. She made several campaign appearances with Oprah Winfrey. She wrote her own stump speeches for her husband's presidential campaign and generally spoke without notes.

During the campaign, columnist Cal Thomas on Fox News described Michelle Obama as an "Angry Black Woman" and some websites attempted to promote this image. Obama said: "Barack and I have been in the public eye for many years now, and we've developed a thick skin along the way. When you're out campaigning, there will always be criticism. I just take it in stride, and at the end of the day, I know that it comes with the territory."

By the time of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in August, media outlets observed that her presence on the campaign trail had grown softer than at the start of the race, focusing on soliciting concerns and empathizing with the audience rather than throwing down challenges to them, and giving interviews to shows such as The View and publications like Ladies' Home Journal rather than appearing on news programs. The change was reflected in her fashion choices, as she wore more informal clothes than her earlier designer pieces. Partly intended to help soften her public image, her appearance on The View was widely covered in the press.

The presidential campaign was Obama's first exposure to the national political scene; she was considered the least famous of the candidates' spouses. Early in the campaign, she told anecdotes about Obama's family life; however, as the press began to emphasize her sarcasm, she toned it down.

New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd wrote:

I wince a bit when Michelle Obama chides her husband as a mere mortal. This comic routine rests on the presumption that we see him as a god ... But it may not be smart politics to mock him in a way that turns him from the glam JFK into the mundane Gerald Ford, toasting his own English muffin. If all Senator Obama is peddling is the Camelot mystique, why debunk this mystique?

On the first night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Craig Robinson introduced his younger sister. She delivered her speech, during which she sought to portray herself and her family as the embodiment of the American Dream. Obama said she and her husband believe "that you work hard for what you want in life, which your word is your bond, and you do what you say you're going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't agree with them." She also emphasized loving her country, likely responding to criticism for having said that she felt "proud of her country for the first time". The first statement was seen as a gaffe. Her keynote address was largely well-received and drew mostly positive reviews. A Rasmussen Reports poll found that her favorability among Americans reached 55%, the highest for her.

On an October 6, 2008, broadcast, Larry King asked Obama if the American electorate was past the Bradley effect. She said her husband's winning the nomination was a fairly strong indicator that it was. The same night she was interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, where she deflected criticism of her husband and his campaign. On Fox News' America's Pulse, E. D. Hill referred to the fist bump shared by the Obamas the night he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, describing it as a "terrorist fist jab". Hill was taken off air and the show was canceled.

2012 presidential re-election campaign

Obama campaigned for her husband's re-election in 2012. Beginning in 2011, Obama became more politically active than she had been since the 2008 election, though avoided discussions about the re-election bid. By the time of the election cycle, she had developed a more open public image. Some commentators viewed her as the most popular member of the Obama administration, noting that her poll approval numbers had not dropped below 60% since she entered the White House. An Obama senior campaign official said she was "the most popular political figure in America". The positive assessment was reasoned to have contributed to her active role in the re-election campaign, but it was noted that the challenge for the Obama campaign was to use her without tarnishing her popularity.

Obama was considered a polarizing figure, having aroused both "sharp enmity and deep loyalty" from Americans, but she was also seen as having improved her image since 2008 when her husband first ran for the presidency. Isabel Wilkinson of The Daily Beast said Obama's fashion style changed throughout the campaign to be sensitive and economical.

Before the first debate of the election cycle, Obama expressed confidence in her husband's debating skills. He was later criticized for appearing detached and for looking down when addressing Romney. The consensus among uncommitted voters was that the latter had won the debate. After Obama's speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, the first lady was found through a CBS News/New York Times poll conducted in September to have a 61% favorable rating with registered voters, the highest percentage she had polled since April 2009.

Obama aimed to humanize her husband by relating stories about him, attempting to appeal to female voters in swing states. Paul Harris of The Guardian said the same tactic was being used by Ann Romney, wife of 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Polls in October showed their husbands tied at 47% for the female vote. However, Michelle Obama's favorability ratings remained higher than Ann Romney's at 69% to 52%. Despite Obama's higher poll numbers, comparisons between Obama and Romney were repeatedly made by the media until the election. But, as Michelle Cottle of Newsweek wrote, "... nobody votes for first lady."