multiple sclerosis, yet went to
work at the city water plant
every day to provide for his family. It
was his influence that drove Michelle
to succeed. “When you see a guy who
gets up every day and goes to work
and it’s hard for him,” remembers her
brother Craig, “it makes it hard for a
teenager to lay around all day.”
Michelle’s determination took her
to Princeton, but as one of the few
African Americans to study there at
the time, she faced discrimination.
“When she arrived, the mother of
one of her white roommates
pulled her daughter out of
Michelle’s residence hall,” says
Christopher Andersen, author
of Barack And Michelle: Portrait
Of An American Marriage. “She
didn’t want her daughter living
with a black girl.”
It was at Princeton that
Michelle wrote her thesis,
Princeton-Educated Blacks And
The Black Community, signalling
the start of activist work within
the black community.
Her next move was to
Harvard, ignoring negative
noises from Princeton staff
members (“she was discouraged
by professors from applying to
Harvard Law School,” says
biographer Liz Lightfoot, author
of Michelle Obama: First Lady Of
Hope), where she participated in
demos demanding more minority
students and professors, before
emerging with a highly paid job at
a Chicago law firm. The high-flying
dream was complete, but Michelle
wasn’t content.
After meeting Barack at the firm
(he was a junior associate), she acted
on her long-held dream to give back
to the city that had helped her reach
so high. “The law firm wasn’t right
for her,” says her mother, Marian.
“All those years ago we taught her
to serve her community. And that’s
what she ended up doing.”
Leaving a huge salary behind,
Michelle helped start a non-profit
organisation called Public Allies
to help 18 to 30-year-olds pursue
careers in public service. Michelle
herself has said: “I was never
happier in my life than when I was
working to build Public Allies.”
TOUGH�TIMES�AHEAD
But career fulfilment didn’t spell
instant happy-ever-after. With the
beginning of Barack’s political dream
and the arrival of daughter Malia
in 1998, Michelle began the juggling
act women the world over can relate
to. She now talks openly of reaching
crisis point, of a time when she
was effectively a single parent and
breadwinner in Chicago while Barack
����WWW�STYLIST�CO�UK
spent time away as a senator.
“She has talked about
feeling angry,” says Liza
Mundy, author of Michelle
Obama: A Biography, “and
of realising that she could
stay angry, or figure out a
way to deal with the situation.”
Her solution was to develop
a network of women, including
her mother and friends who
could support each other. “She
realised she needed help. It
would be nice if it came from
FACE OF THE FUTURE:
MICHELLE GRADUATED FROM
PRINCETON IN 1985
Barack, but it didn’t have to.”
And while their relationship is rock
solid now, Michelle has admitted that
her “marriage isn’t perfect.” Andersen
reveals that there was conflict and
near-tragedy along the way. “They
fought about money (student loans
left them more than $200,000 in debt),
they worried about infertility (she
tried to have children for five years
before Malia arrived, and at one point
considered adoption), they suffered
career setbacks, they sought
counselling at one point because
of the mounting strains in their
marriage, and they went through
the horror of almost losing one of
their children in infancy.”
In September 2001, three-monthold
Sasha was rushed to hospital and
diagnosed with spinal meningitis.
Barack and Michelle stayed by her
side for 72 hours straight, until she
pulled through. Michelle called it “the
nightmare that brought us closer
together than ever.”
United in their goal to see Barack
in the White House, Michelle’s brains
and razor-sharp instincts were
invaluable. Many question if he
would even have got there without
her. “It’s incredible just how great a
role Michelle has played in Barack’s
success from the beginning,” says
Andersen. “She even shaped his
speaking style, getting him to loosen
up, to speak straight from his heart.
POWER COUPLE: MICHELLE
DANCES WITH HER HUSBAND AT
THE PRESIDENT’S INAUGURATION
Later, she convinced him to adopt the
slogan ‘Yes We Can,’ which he hated
at first, but which wound up being
one of the most wildly effective
slogans in modern political history.”
THE�MAGIC�TOUCH
While friends revealed to Mundy
that Michelle had been quiet in high
school and college, on the campaign
trail Michelle displayed her famous
rapport with crowds. Kathy Flake was
an American in London in 2007 when
she watched Michelle Obama take the
stage, and blow everyone away.
“Michelle was amazing. She spoke
about her life and struggles and I felt
as if she was speaking directly to me.
I even wondered for a moment if
someone had given her my life story.
After her 20-minute speech, without
notes, there was such a buzz. She
knocked it out of the ballpark.”
Kathy then met the First-Lady-tobe
and they discussed their shared
experiences as parents. “She was very
tactile with me, holding my arm as
we spoke. I told her about getting my
younger daughter off to college and
she reached out and embraced me.
She said: “You’ve made it now,” and
it made me feel so special to have her
admire me for completing this
journey, when she had completed so
much.” Kathy was left feeling a deep
connection. “I came away thinking
that I would love to hang out with her
and have coffee. I could see us fitting
into the same circle, I felt a bond.”
Post-inauguration and Michelle has
been subtly making her presence felt
in politics. Not in a Hilary Clinton
way (when Hilary was First Lady, she
opened a second office in the West
Wing near her husband, in a move
that insinuated to many that she saw
herself as co-president), but as a
behind-the-scenes advisor who wants
to make a difference. Says Anderson:
“She walks this narrow path between
what Hilary did in the White House
and a more traditional First Lady like
Laura Bush. For example, she will
speak out on health care reform, but
when she does it’s always couched in
personal terms.”
Lightfoot agrees. “Michelle Obama
and Hilary Clinton are equally well
educated, equally capable and equally
smart, but they are from different
generations. Hilary seemed to feel the
need to prove she was her husband’s
equal, once famously saying: ‘I’m not
sitting at home baking cookies’. But
Michelle is of the next generation; a
generation that benefited from people
like Hilary Clinton. (Indeed, asked
in 2004 which First Lady she most
admires, Michelle cited Hilary,
describing her as ‘smart’, ‘gracious’,
and as having ‘raised a solid,
grounded child’.) Michelle doesn’t
seem to need to prove anything.”
And, as Barack’s key advisor,
it seems Michelle still has a great
deal of power. Mundy recalls: “This
summer, there was a flap over the
arrest of an African American
Harvard professor, and Barack
Obama’s first instinct was to criticise
the police officer who had arrested
him. Then he sort of back-tracked,
as if to say, well, nobody’s perfect and
surely there were two sides to this
story. Michelle Obama was one of the
people who really talked him through
that and presumably encouraged him
to see both sides of the story. As a
wife I think she is outspoken, she
always says what she thinks. The
“It’s annoying when the media
focuses on her appearance to the
exclusion of her accomplishments”
sense I have is that her husband
listens to her opinion and trusts it.”
Since moving her family, including
her mother who helps with childcare,
into the White House, Michelle has
gone to every length to meet and
connect with the public. “She’s made
the White House accessible,” says
Mundy. “We have a wide variety
of incomes and ethnicities and she
wants to make sure that the
disadvantaged are not ignored.”
Her passion for public service has
seen Michelle volunteer at Miriam’s
Kitchen, a food stop for the homeless.
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.