Abstract
This article draws upon two biographies of Michelle Obama, Michelle: A Biography by Liza Mundy (2008) and Michelle Obama: An American Story by David Colbert (2009) to relate the life story of the first African American First Lady. They portray an “ordinary” African American woman with an “extraordinary” destiny and use the tension between these two perspectives to outline an exceptional biographical character. Giving insight into a woman’s experience marked by the complex and painful African American history, the biographers have woven her own family story into collective history. As they retrace her ancestors’ perilous lives, from slavery in South Carolina and Georgia to the historical events that took place in Chicago during the twentieth century, they reveal Obama’s symbolic impact on the psyche of many African American families as well as her deep sense of historical responsibility.
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Notes
- 1.
This was the first time an incoming president used Lincoln ’s Bible, which is part of the collection at the Library of Congress. The 1280-page volume was published in 1853 by Oxford University Press.
- 2.
The “not black enough” charge foreshadowed more brutal ones like the 2011 rumors about President Obama being a practicing Muslim who was not born in America. The birther movement, with Republican presidential aspirant Donald Trump at its head, questioned Obama’s birth certificate validity, hence his American citizenship, and consequently, under Article Two of the Constitution, his eligibility to be President of the United States.
- 3.
“Barack Obama Speech on Race ,” delivered on Tuesday, March 18, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_9al4IQOhk, accessed on March 15, 2017.
- 4.
See “the Sapphire Caricature”, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University. http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/sapphire/, accessed on May 16, 2017. The conservative media’s stereotyped image of “Michelle Obama as Sapphire” is discussed on this page.
- 5.
Joanna Coles and Lucy Kaylin, “Barack in the Saddle,” Marie-Claire, August 15, 2008. http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a1968/barack-obama-interview-women/, accessed on March 15, 2017.
- 6.
Daniella Silva, “Michelle Obama : The Historic Legacy of the First Black First Lady ,” NBC News, January 6, 2017. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/president-obama-the-legacy/michelle-obama-historic-legacy-nation-s-first-black-first-lady-n703506, accessed on March 6, 2017.
- 7.
Idem.
- 8.
In the post–Civil War period, former Confederate states saw white supremacy groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorize blacks and whites who supported Reconstruction. With the Compromise of 1877 and the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, a deal was reached with Southern states to remove federal troops based in the South and put an end to Reconstruction, leaving the field free for local anti-black legislation. Jim Crow laws of racial segregation were passed, denying African Americans their right to vote, and excluding them from many all-white facilities. Racial violence was rife and bloody riots broke out in South Carolina in May 1919, initiating the violent “Red Summer” that spread across the country with white mobs intimidating, lynching, and murdering African Americans.
- 9.
“Barack Obama Speech on Race ,” delivered on Tuesday, March 18, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_9al4IQOhk, accessed on March 15, 2017.
- 10.
Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” speech delivered on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm, accessed on December 12, 2017.
- 11.
Malcolm X ’s first public address on behalf of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights on June 28, 1964. http://www.blackpast.org/1964-malcolm-x-s-speech-founding-rally-organization-afro-american-unity, accessed on December 12, 2017.
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Loizeau, PM. (2018). Michelle Obama: The Voice and Embodiment of (African) American History. In: Letort, D., Lebdai, B. (eds) Women Activists and Civil Rights Leaders in Auto/Biographical Literature and Films. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77081-9_8
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