Or reflect. Hi, everyone. Were here digging up soil because were about to plant a garden. I wont be satisfied, nor will my husband until every single veteran and Military Spouse who wants a job has one. At the end of the day, my most important title is still mominchief. [ applause ] in 2008, barack obama was elected as our 44th president and he and First Lady Michelle Obama went into the history books as the first africanamerican first couple. Now one year into a second obama term, the first lady continues her focus on Childhood Obesity and support for military families and access to education. Good evening and welcome. Well tonight is the final installment in our yearlong series first lady, influence and image and we finish with the current first lady, Michelle Obama. For the next 90 minutes well learn about her biography and her six years so far. Let me introduce you to the two guests. And theyre both journalists who have covered the first lady. Liza mundy is biographer and her 2008 book was called michelle and Krissah Thompson covers the first lady as her beat. Thank you for coming tonight. Were start our program with a clip from 2008. Michelle obama in a Campaign Speech talking about her own personal story. Lets watch. All of my life ive con fronted people who have a certain expectation of me. Every step of the way there was somebody there telling me what i couldnt do. Applied to princeton, you cant go there. Your test scores arent high enough. Oh, i went. I graduated with departmental honors. Wrong. [ applause ] and then i wasnt supposed to go to harvard. That was probably a little too tough for me. I dont know why they said that. But i could go through every curve and twist and turn of my life and find somebody that was telling me lower your expectations, such your sights low, youre not ready, you cant do that. And every time i push past other peoples limited expectations of me, and reached for things that i knew i could do and grab my seat at the table that others felt so entitled to, what i learned was that there is no magic to these people who feel so much more ready than me. I was just as ready, always just as prepared as anyone at that table. We are going to talk about her biography but this was before she went to the campaign trail and both of you have observing her professionally. When you watch the 2008 Michelle Obama, the prewhite house Michelle Obama, how has she grown in the job and changed her approach from the public from what we see in that clip. Well, i think shes become more optimistic and positive. I had a hard time her saying Something Like that today. In that clip almost like there is something called imposter syndrome when people arent supposed to be where they are and it takes them a lot to get over that, to realize, wow, im just as good as everybody else because maybe you came from a background where you werent expected to be in this place. And if she felt any of that, shes certainly gotten over it. She seems comfortable in where sher. Krissah thompson, what do you think. I think some of the rough edges have been polished off. When shes talking to young people, shes definitely say, people didnt believe in me at different points in my life but i showed them that i could overcome and i made these achievements anyway and this line there is no magic to this. She said that often. So people know she could close this gap between where she came from and where she is and that kids can do the same thing. In your book, you say early on that Michelle Obama once said of politics that sometimes it is a waste of time and she has become over time her husbands trusted political adviser andoch his surrogate. When did that transformation happen . That is a really good question. She came from chicago, which is a city of machine politics, a city not politically just or fair to its africanamerican residents. She had a lot of reason to be skeptical of politics when she was growing up and her family was famously skeptical of politics to the point of where barack obama when he confessed to Craig Robinson, dont tell aunt gracy. Keep that under your hat. And i think she even described herself in 2007 as having been sort of the last one to accept or know that barack obama was really going to run for president. So i think it must have come during the president ial campaign, really. Do you agree . I do. There is a idea that she was a relubt lu reluctant campaign because they had two young daughters and thinking of the sacrifices that would have to be made. She had been through a campaign for senate that took them all across the state and her mom had to step up in many ways and help with the daughters. So when you think about taking that to the nation, there was a lot to consider and she didnt she counted the cost, you could put it that way. But then im told, once she signed on, she was all in. So it wasnt that this reluctance continued throughout. When we started out the series we promised it would be from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama to cover the full span of the first ladies throughout history. Obviously this one is a challenge tonight because it is a sitting first lady. The story has not been told nor is there some distance in time to judge her legacy in history so were going to spend some time on her biography and how she used her first six years in the white house and we do invite your calls along the way. Let about politics and more about biography as we have been throughout the series and join in by telephone, 2025852880 and 3881 in the mountain or pacific time zone including hawaii, the president s home state and you could find us on twitter at first ladies is our twitter address and facebook is another opportunity. There is already a conversation on the Facebook Page about Michelle Obama and you could join that and well mix in comments throughout the program. So were going to her biography. She was born when and where . She was born in chicago in 1964. She just had her 50th birthday. So it was january 17th. Right. And you reference this, but what was 1960 chicago like for the Robinson Family. It was a very segregated city still. She grew up on the south side of chicago. There were a lot of different neighborhoods and migrants, different ethnic neighborhoods and redlining. The city was just opening up a little bit so her family when she was still small was able to move into a neighborhood that had been a white neighborhood. And craig has said and neighbors have said they remember the white family started moving away from families like the robinsons were moving in. And they would have been aware of that. They would have been aware that opportunities were opening up for better neighborhoods, better schools, but at the same time, there was a white flag going on that they would have in some way aware was happening. Frazier robinson, died in 1991 and mother Mary Robinson who lives at the white house and we dont see her too often but shes part of the first family. We have a clip about Michelle Obama talking about her father. If you watch the Democratic Convention in 2020 you may remember this speech. Lets listen in. My father was a pump operator at the city water plant and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when my brother and i were young. And even as a kid, i know there were plenty of days when he was in pain. And i knew there were plenty of mornings when it was a struggle for him to simply get out of bed. But every morning i watched my father wake up with a smile, grab his walker, prop himself up against the bathroom sink and slowly shave and button his uniform. And when he returned home after a long days work my brother and i would stand at the top of the stairs of our little apartment, patiently waiting to greet him, watching as he reached down to lift one leg and then the other to slowly climb his way into our arms. But despite these challenges, my dad hardly ever missed a day of work. He and my mom were determined to give me and my brother the kind of education they could only dream of. [ applause ] and when my brother and i finally made it to college nearly all of our tuition came from Student Loans and grants. But my dad still had to pay a tiny portion of that tuition himself and every semester, he was determined to pay that bill right on time, even taking out loans when he fell short. He was so proud to be sending his kids to college. And he made sure we never missed a registration deadline because his check was late. You see, for my dad, thats what it meant to be a man. So a lot to follow up with there. But lets start with her father and his influence on her life. If you look at the obamas as a couple, the interesting comparison is that barack obama really didnt know his father at all. And it seems from what we can see there that for Michelle Obama, her father was a very important influence. Her father was a central figure and both of her parents. Her brother described their childhood as being a shangrila of chicago where parents spent lots of time with them. They werent leaving the kids with babysitters when they went out for entertainment, they did it together. They built the kids selfesteem and made it seem like they were wonderful people to be around and that kind of confidence infused in their lives. They played board games, took family trips. There was a much broader robinson clan in town and so they knew all of their relatives and went to visit and just kind of described a really warm family centered childhood and their dad was at the heart of that. Now, she described him as the pump operator but he was also part of the precinct democratic precinct arrangement in the city of chicago, highly political city. So what was his job and how did that influence the familys understanding of politics and what it could do. He was a precinct captain. So he would go around and in some ways a Community Organizer like barack obama. Get people out and get people to vote. And neighbors said that he was a joking man. That he that he had a very good sense of humor and he was an extrovert. And to get the pump operator job, with the city machine, that you would get a city job would be through your political help. And the other thought i had about both of her parents is one having a good city job meant for them that Michelle Obamas mom could stay home with the children and in a way that many women in their community were not able to do so. Africanamericans have a longer tradition of having to go out to work. And so i think that that when she had children, she asked herself, should i be home with my daughters the way that my mother was home with me. But i think it probably made her fathers job seem all the more valuable to have. Could i just add to that because i think that is an important point. About her mom. She was a stayathome mom but also had a couple of years of Teachers College so she was able to kind of home school her children before home schooling was popular in the way that we think about it and both of them skipped early grades in Elementary School and so you see things happening in this family early that are different. So both children went to princeton and michelle went on to harvard law school. Where did that emphasis on education come from. Her parents. They were really clear this is the road to get ahead. And her brother in his book writes about his mom teaching them to read at home and doing math tables and that kind of thing. So when they got to school, even as early as first and secondary grades, they were already steps ahead of everyone else and that just kind of continues along with their own hard work, of course, through high school. But theyre excelling really early on. And when Michelle Obama got into a Magnet School that what in a different part of chicago at a early age she had to take several modes of transportation to get to her high school and leave really early in the morning in the winter. An hour long bus ride shes talked about to get to school. And during 2008, the Washington Post wrote a big story about the genealogy of Michelle Obamas family tracing it back to slave in georgetown, South Carolina. Question for both of you because youve both written about this, the arc Robinson Family life is the arc of black history in america. In ways that Barack Obamas life is not. So can you comment about that and what we see in the Robinson Family and part of the great migration in the 40s and 50s, et cetera and how we should understand their experience . Do you want to go first . You go. You may know more about the family from South Carolina on to chicago and just that arc. We do know that for africanamericans the fact that her story is rooted in relatives that were enslaved has been very important and connected to just her relationship with the community in general. I mean, when you look back to 2008, there were some questions early on about is barack obama black enough and you never heard that sort of thing about Michelle Obama, of course. And i think part of that is rooted in the more traditional africanamerican experience. And so in that way she kind of serves as a validator for him in many ways. In chicago politics. So that was important. So what do you want to add about the Robinson Family history . Just as you say. I mean, her familys history is quintessential in that some of her family stayed in georgetown and she has relatives that are still there. There was a train depot very close to town and some at least one of her male ancestors, i think it would have been her great grandfather traveled to chicago because that is where the trains went. And was able to settle in the south side where there was the meat packing plants and the stock yards and all of the industrial labor, there is still a lot of racism and different wage scales for white and black men but it was better than the south. And then the Robinson Family was able to establish a very broad and rooted family in chicago so that when she and barack obama were first going out, that was his that was a real epiphany for him, an experience to be in such a rooted family where your uncles were coming around and people were visiting with each other. It is just a different family life than he had experienced. Before we leave her childhood years, Adrian Wilber asked mrs. Obama is into having children exercise more, did she play any sports when she was younger. She did ballet in high school and she danced. And her brother writes a little bit about this in his book describing his sister as being very competitive, she wanted to win board games and foot races and that kind of thing. And if my recollection is right, part of the reason she didnt continue no, let me pause. She said that she didnt do many sports in high school and beyond because, like liza said, she was taking the bus back and forth and to would have kept her at school to late to do some of those afterschool extracurricular programs. Because craig went to a different high school, a Parochial School where she could play basketball. And she said she resisted playing basketball because she was tall and people thought she would be likely to be basketball. And not being able to beat her brother. The first lady is 511. Do you have any idea when she was playing . Let me take a couple of calls and learn about her days at princeton and then law school and meeting the future president. Kathy is in aurora, colorado. Caller good evening. Thank you very much for your program. Ive been watching since Martha Washington until now. My comment is that i am a romantic and i see some the president s and their wives seem to show a lot of love and all of this and for instance pat and richard nixon, they didnt seem i think he loved her but he just didnt show it and i could see it with michelle and president obama. That they really do love one another. It is not a phoney. I think they do care for each other and enjoy each Others Company and that is just my comment. And i think that this is so important for the people of the United States or any kind of country to say, hey, these two people do love one another and i dont care if youre a republican or democrat, i think it is so important that they do show that they do care and dont put on a show. Thank you, kathy. Also, since weve been moving through history with this series, have Society Standards changed where were more welcoming of seeing the emotional, personal side of the people in the white house than we might have been . I think so. In part just because of Reality Television if nothing else, right. Were so intimately involved with people that we dont know well and in some ways people feel like they know the obamas and their relationship because it is on public display and something of the same way. We catch wind when theyre on date night. We know that last weekend they had an early valentines day dinner and that kind of thing and that is out in the public and people see them warmly touching each other and hugging and even his campaign at one point sent out a photo of them together hugging one another, both embracing one another and that just went viral. And then there were pieces in newspapers, sort of thinking about what it means to see a kind of modern marriage in the white house. And considering those ideas. Well, add the other layer to that, a modern marriage in the white house and a