Late teens. He writes that that as well as how he balanced governing with being a dad. We join him in chicago in a high school where he was visiting with a group of young men who were part of my brothers keeper to talk about their lives and the challenges they face. Are you going back to Community Organizing . Well, probably im a little too old and gray haired to be going door to door like i used to be. Plus Secret Service follows me around which is pretty disruptive. I am going back to what inspired me to get into public life. One of the thing that inspires former president barack obama these days are meetings like this one. Hey, people. Hey, hey. Its called a bam circle, bam stands for becoming a man. A program started in chicago in 2001 to mentor and support boys and young men. How is everybody doing . The idea is to create a place for them to safely and honestly share struggles and successes, issues at home, in school or on the streets. President obama first joined a Bam Circle Back in 2013. Thats when he met High School Students james adams, Lazarus Daniels and christian champagne. Today, in the same classroom they sat in eight years ago at the high park park, high school on the south side of the chicago, mr. Obama is catching up with them again. James and lazerus is 25. Christian is 25. He said talking with the president back then was Life Changing. So crazy. That first period that i went to class, it was like im fixing to meet the president on my lunch. That was the most unconceivable thing you could possibly think of, and then my heart was like racing like when we was just sitting down and he walked in like it changed the trajectory of my life dramatically. That meeting had a big impact on president obama, as well. One of the things that led him to launch an initiative called my brothers keeper which he announced at the white house in 2014. Christian, lazerus and james were there. That was your first time in d. C. My first plane ride and that was really my first time being out of my neighborhood. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Christian champagne was 18 years old at the time. He sad down with us and shared his story and to my surprise, he was just like me growing up without a father and sometimes not too concerned with school. [ laughter ] okay. Thats pretty nice that this is a black president grew up without a father. Some of the guys grew up without a father is relatable. Its not just he had it made from jump and hes a president. Its i can relate to him. Mr. Obama has been candid about the struggles of his youth and hopes sharing his story will inspire other kids to believe they, too, can establish great things. I made bad choices. I got high without always thinking about the harm it could do. You say you were a lackadaisical student of limited talent and dedicated partier. No Student Government for me, eagle scouts or interning at the congressmans office. I have to be careful not to overstate. I was not, you know, going around, you know, beating kids up. I get it. And, you know, setting things on fire but i understood what it meant to not have a father in the house. I understood what it meant to be in an environment in which you were an outsider. In hawaii, one difference between me and these young men was there werent a lot of black people generally at the time, and you also were growing up before that in indonesia as an outsider. Also an outsider in indonesia. So there was mixed in with the teenage hormones and just the usual stuff that teens go through, that sense of whats my place . And how do i raise myself to be a man . And what does that entail . Responsibilities are there . What obligations do i have . When i try to record in the book is the sense in which in part the values that my mother and grandparents instilled in me, even if i wasnt always following them when i was a teenager led me to the realization around 20, a little later than some of these guys that to be a full grown man meant not acting out, not being cynical but taking on responsibilities not just for yourself but the world around you. Helping boys and young men become full grown men is what bam is all about and the Obama Foundation supports bam programs in several cities through the my brothers keeper alliance. Do you think you would have benefitted from having this as a teenager . Im sure i could have. When we came here, three of the guys here were still in school at the time and we had a chance to have a conversation and part of what i shared with them was and i think this surprised some of the guys, was my life wasnt that different than yours. I wasnt that different from you. The main difference was i was growing up in a gentler environment. In hawaii. In hawaii. So, you know, the violence and drugs and some of the issues that the guys were dealing with day to day were different. But the mistakes i made, the struggles i was going through were similar, and i think that it would have been useful for me at that time to have just a circle in which you can talk and i think that, you know, one of the things we all learned from a pandemic is that Human Connection matters. That were not all by ourselves and we dont accomplish most of the things we accomplish by ourselves. It requires a community. And i think particularly for boys and men of color, many of whom grow up without fathers but many of whom also live in relative isolation where the communities because of safety issues or Economic Issues folks dont have as many resources around them it becomes that much more critical to be able to have someplace where you can come and just say listen, im struggling with this or, you know, im confused about that or, you know, these are the kinds of pressures im dealing with and have somebody who either is their peer or somebody older that can say yeah, man, thats something i went through, also. Im struggling with this, too. This is something im confused about and being able to talk it through. President obama says he found his purpose and ambition in life through community service, and eventually a career in politics becoming a father to daughter sasha and malia gave him the chance to be the father he never had. James and lazarus are fathers now as well. We were talking before, the three of you guys were in the program. You were in the school. Now you guys have moved on. Two of you are now fathers. Yes, sir. And both of you have daughters. Yes, proud. So, you know, anderson here, hes a new father. How old is wyatt now . Just turned 1. Just turned 1. So hes still in diaper changing mode. Other than changing diapers, how is that changed your perspective and how do you think about it because look, meeting the president. Thats cool. But its not Life Changing in the same way that being a parent is. Before having a daughter, like, i was able to make stupid decisions, but now that i have a daughter, i have to think about her. I have to think about her mother, her sister because now im the man of the house, and everything that i do is pretty much revolved around her. So i want to be that father thats always there. I want to be the one that you come home from school to that brightens up your day. Anything you need, you can always come to me. I didnt have that growing up. I didnt have a father. It was one point in time i didnt see my father for, like, ten years so i want to be there for her for everything. Fantastic. How about you . Being a father is amazing to me. My baby girl got a great big smile, full of energy, full of life, full of joy. I was fortunate to have my father and mother together. One thing bam helped me out with is being able to speak on things because i wasnt able to talk to my father because he was strictly business. He was old school. President obama checked in on him over the years since they met more than his own father has. Whats going on, man . You all right . Yeah . Things going all right . Finish strong like you were supposed to . Yeah, i do. I know experience, excellence is possible and i need to strive for that. Although, sports are important to me, i focus on my gpa and will get it back to a 3. 8. [ applause ] what has your life been like since that meeting . You went to morehouse . Yeah, i went to morehouse, well, for like a semester and then i realized i couldnt pay for it so i had to come back home and start over and go to western, work through that, got a Couple Internships and landed a job thats a career job now but before i wasnt even really thinking about going to college to be honest because i was always worried about can i pay for it . Would i be accepted . You know. I think after the first visit you may hear, i worked a little harder on my grades. You know, i stopped playing around. I was like maybe i could do something else. Maybe i could go to college. When you sit in a circle like that, you know, the obstacles these kids are facing and able to overcome is really extraordinary. Yeah, you know, the first time i sat down with these guys, the most important thing for me to communicate at that time and i was the president of the United States was you guys in many ways are ahead of me of where i was at your age. I just had certain advantages you guys dont. I could make a mistake and land on my feet. But even christian is 25. His single mom i think you have five or sixth brothers and sisters, family of six. You know, he got into morehouse, had to drop out because of money. Went to another school, had to drop out because he got ill. Now hes working hoping to go back to school. Its not a question of not working hard enough or, you know, being motivated enough. And that is where sort of for me, my personal Journey Intersected with this broader question of how are we setting up a society so young men like that can succeed or not succeed and thats what led me to the outside of chicago. Thats what led me to be an organizer is that sense that look, when i walk down the street of the south side of chicago, i see young people and they look and remind me of me or michelle and a combination of circumstance allowed us to succeed, but these kids are just as talented. Theyre just as smart. They could achieve just as much if weve got an education system, a social safety net, Job Opportunities that expose them and give them a chance and, you know, i think that the single most important thing i learned as an organizer here in chicago was that, you know, the line between success or failure in this society so often is dictated not by anybodys inherent merits but the circumstances theyre in. That doesnt mean they dont have individual responsibility. These young men you recognize i have to work hard and do my part but it also means we as a society continue to fail them. Also, how stacked the deck is against so many people in our society from even before they are born. Yes. I heard i was reading the speech you gave awhile back, a figure i never heard before by the age of 3 if you grew up in a low income family, you heard 30 million fewer words than a well off family. Which means by the time you show up in first grade, youre already significantly behind. The good news is it turns out as youre learning as a parent, kids are amazingly resilient and they can catch up, but it also means that we have to make investments to ensure they catch up. The other thing, i mean, i leave that Room Thinking how many other kids arent in that room . One of the things we really liked about this program becoming a man was they didnt focus on the superstar, right . That they deliberately target not the kids who are either in the most trouble or are either most successful in defying the odds but the kids who are right there sort of in the middle that can tip in either direction that if they get an encouraging adult, if they are able to as lazarus was expressing, if they can find words to tell their story and talk out, they can succeed and thats part of what i think made this conversation wonderful is yeah, these kids arent like sort of one in a million. This is what you just heard was young black men all across this country. Thats who they are. Its not the stereo type. These are not prodigies. They are brimming with potential. If we have a society thats afraid of them, we need to listen and hear them because theyre no different than you or i in so many ways except for the opportunities they have or dont have. Mr. Obama will be writing another book about his final years in the white house and what happened after, but in a promise land the president writes about the beginnings of the changes he witnessed in the Republican Party when john mccain selected sarah palin to his running mate. Dark spirits lurking on the edges of the Republican Party coming center stage. Did you ever think it would get this dark . [sfx revving trucks] Pilot Over Radio here we go, lets do this. Pilot over radio right there, right there. [sfx revving trucks] Pilot Over Radio g complete. How do you introduce the largerthanlife gmc yukon . With the worlds biggest tweet. The next generation gmc yukon. Premium thats made to be used. 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Its been more than four years since the obamas left the white house and a moment the former president describes as bittersweet in his book. Hello, everybody. Partly because they were leaving and partly because of what he thought might happen to the country. You wrote about sarah palin. You wrote about dark spirits and had long been lurking on the edge of the Republican Party coming center stage. Did you ever thing it would get this dark . No, i thought there were guard rails institutionally after trump was elected that you would have the socalled republican establishment who would say okay, you know, its a problem if the white house isnt doesnt seem to be concerned about russian meddling or its a problem if we have a president who is saying that, you know, neonazis marching in charlottesville, there are good people on both sides. Thats a little beyond the pale. And the degree to which we did not see that republican establishment say hold on timeout, thats not acceptable. Thats not who we are but be cowed into accepting it and january 6th what originally was dont worry, this isnt going anywhere, were just letting trump and others vent and then suddenly you now have large portions of an elected Congress Going along with the falsehood that there were problems with the election. And the leadership of the gop briefly for, you know, one night when they still had this sort of scent of fear in them going against the president then poof. Suddenly, everybody was back in line. What the reason for that is because the base believed it. The base believed it because this had been told to them not just by the president but by the media that they watch and nobody stood up and said stop. This is enough. This is not true. I wont say nobody, let me correct it. There were some very brave people who did their jobs like the Secretary Of State in georgia who was then viciously attacked for it and all these congressman said you know what . Ill lose my job. Ill get voted out of office. Another way of saying this is i didnt expect that there would be so few people who would say well, i dont mind losing my office because this is too important. America is too important. Some things are more important our democracy is more important. We didnt see that. Now, you know, im still the Hope And Change guy and so my hope is that the tides will turn but that does require each of us to understand that this experiment in democracy is not selfexecuting. It doesnt happen automatically. These values and trues we hold selfevident, this is important. Were going to sacrifice for it and stand up for it even when its not politically convenient. You write we need to explain to each other who we are and where were going. As somebody who has dedicated myself to Story Telling that resonates with me. Are we as a country still willing to listen to each others stories . This is the biggest challenge we have is that we dont have the kinds of shared stories we used to. There has always been a division along the lines of race. We have 400 years of whites and blacks not being able to have shared experiences because of slavery and segregation and so forth but within the white community, the stories of kids growing up in manhattan and the stories of kidding grows up in abilene, texas and the stories of the kid who is growing up in montana, those stories no longer meet, partly because of the segment, the siloing of the media, the internet, entertainment. We occupy different worlds and it becomes that much more difficult for us to hear each other, see each other. The thing i learned first as an organizer and then as an elected official as a politician was when you start hearing peoples stories, you always find a thread of your own story in somebody else. And the minute that recognition happens, thats the basis for a community. It seems like something has changed so that its become so extreme that were not even allowing ourselves to get into a position where we can see that commonality. I heard in the past you talk about when you were starting out in politics, you go to Southern Illinois to very conservative districts. They gave me a hearing. Yeah. I thi