The South Side of Chicago has produced many notable individuals, including the first African American First Lady of the United States of America.
Michelle Obama’s journey began in the South Side of Chicago, where Fraser and Marian Robinson instilled in their daughter a heartfelt commitment to family, hard work, and education.
As we celebrate the women of Chicago’s South Side, Michelle Robinson Obama is at the top of our list.
In her book, “Becoming,” Michelle tells us, “When I was a kid, my aspirations were simple, I wanted a dog, I wanted a house that had stairs in it – two floors for one family — I wanted, for some reason, a four-door station wagon instead of the two-door Buick that was my father’s pride and joy.”
Her wishes came true abundantly. That dog she wanted? She got two beautiful water dogs, Sunny and Bo, who had the distinction of being the First Dogs of the United States of America.
The house she got was white and yes, it had stairs, and a lot of rooms, the most important being the Oval Office. That house was home of the First Family of the United States, which included her, her two daughters Sasha and Malia, her beloved mother and of course, her husband Barak Obama, the first African American President of the United States.
She had also dreamed of becoming a doctor, and although that didn’t happen, she did become a vice president at a hospital, and a lawyer, and a director of a nonprofit that helps young people build meaningful careers. The job she loved best was being a mother.
Her ultimate job was that of First Lady of the United States. Of that she says, “It has given me a platform like nothing I could have imagined. It challenged me and humbled me, lifted me up and shrank me down, sometimes all at once.”
She says, “It’s been quite a ride, from the moment in 2006 when my husband first began talking about running for president, to the cold morning when I climbed into a limo with Melania Trump, accompanying her to her husband’s inauguration.”
That ride started on the south side of Chicago. Michelle and her husband and their two daughters faithfully attended Trinity United Church of Christ every Sunday, when he wasn’t campaigning or meeting in another city. They sat in the second row from the front and when the congregation members learned who he was and that they had a politician in their midst who was running for a federal office, the race was on to see who could get the closest to the second pew each Sunday.
The South Side was so much a part of Michelle’s life that she even had a grandfather who carried that name. In her book, she says, “The musical center of my family was my grandfather Shields the carpenter… he was a carefree, round-bellied man with an infectious laugh and a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard. When I was younger, he’d lived on the west side of the city and Craig (her brother) and I had referred to him as Westside. But he moved into our neighborhood the same year I started taking piano lessons and we’d duly rechristened him South Side.”
She paints an enchanting picture of South Side and his music, “We celebrated most major life events at South Side’s house, which meant that over the years we unwrapped Christmas presents to Ella Fitzgerald and blew out birthday candles to Coltrane.
According to my mother, as a younger man, South Side had made a point of pumping jazz into his seven children, often waking everyone at sunrise by playing one of his records at full blast…. If I was hungry, he’d make me a milk shake or fry us a whole chicken while we listened to Aretha or Miles or Billie. To me, South Side was as big as heaven. And heaven, as I envisioned it, had to be a place full of jazz.”
Michelle earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School. In 1988, she returned to Chicago to join the firm of Sidley Austin. It was there that she met Barack Obama, a summer associate she was assigned to advise. They were married in 1992.
By that time Michelle had turned her energies to public service. She was assistant commissioner of planning and development in Chicago’s City Hall before becoming the founding executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an AmeriCorps program that prepares young people for public service. In 1996, she joined the University of Chicago as associate dean of student services, where she developed the university’s first community service program. In 2002, she went to work for the University of Chicago Medical Center, where in 2005 she became the vice president of community and external affairs. During these years the Obamas’ daughters Malia and Sasha were born.
As first lady, Michelle Obama initiated Let’s Move! a program aiming to end childhood obesity within a generation. Through it, elected officials, business leaders, educators, parents, and faith leaders worked together to provide more nutritious food in schools, bring healthy and affordable food into underserved communities, plant vegetable gardens across America, and provide new opportunities for kids to be more active. Each year local schoolchildren helped plant and harvest the garden she started on the White House South Lawn. Its vegetables and fruits were served at the White House and donated to soup kitchens and food banks.
During Barack Obama’s second term Michelle spearheaded the Reach Higher Initiative to help students understand job opportunities and the education and skills they need for those jobs. She encouraged young people to continue their education past high school in technical schools and community colleges as well as at colleges and universities. Worldwide, she championed the education of girls and women. In a commencement address at the City College of New York she told graduates, “Never view your challenges as obstacles.” It is a lesson she has embodied all her life. Throughout her time in the White House Mrs. Obama worked to support veterans and military families. She also focused her energies on what she calls her most important role: Mom in Chief to her daughters, who grew into accomplished young women during their eight years in the White House.
Michelle Obama’s journey isn’t over. Soon, she’ll travel back to the South Side of Chicago from time-to-time to oversee the Obama Presidential Center. About the Obama Center, Michelle said, “We had to think, where do we put this resource? Because it will be a resource. What better place to put it than in our back yard. Jackson Park is like that juxtaposition of everything in our lives. South Shore to the South, Hyde Park to the North, Barack and I were married and had our reception in South Shore, Hyde Park is where we raised our kids, where our kids went to school, I worked at the University of Chicago. It’s where we bought our first home. This is our home.”
