the atomic bomb hosted by wesleyan university, sponsored by kai burr, reporter jada young and at 9:30 p.m. eastern on the presidency, a discussion about the lifelong friendship of gerald ford and jimmy carter who were rivals during the 1976 presidential campaign, but found common cause in the decades after they left the white house. exploring the american story. watch american history tv saturdays on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. ♪♪ >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's story and on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors, funding for

c-span2 comes from these television companies and more, including wow. >> the world has changed. today, the fast, reliable internet connection is something no one can live without. wow is there with our customers with speed, reliability, value and choice and now more than ever ittarts with great internet. wow, along with these television companies support c-span2 as a public service. >> well, good evening. welcome, and thank you for joining us this evening for what i'm sure will be a very stimulating session. my name is susan poser and i'm the president of hofstra university. this evening's program will address the leadership and legacy of first lady michelle obama. tonight, we will hear about the role that the first lady played in supporting president obama's election campaign, advising him during his time in the white house, and how she continues to

influence american politics today. i want to thank the women in leadership advisory board of hofstra university for co-sponsoring this event and many of them are with us today. [applause] >> my role this evening is to moderate a panel discussion with ms. tina tchen who served as chief of staff to the first lady from 2011 to 2017 and in conversation with several members of the hofstra faculty. so i'll begin with brief introductions. tina tchen is the executive and chief strategy impact officer for the obama foundation. she served for eight years in the obama white house, first as the inaugural director of the white house office of public engagement and then as chief of staff to mrs. obama. tchen served as the executive director of the white house

council of women and girls for eight years. after the white house, she worked in the chicago office of the buckley law firm and later served as the president and ceo of times up now and the times up foundation. the panel this evening also includes three hofstra protesters who have scholarly expertise in women's studies, public communications policy making, education and mental health counseling all priorities of michelle obama when she served as first lady. so, farthest to your left, dr. lisa merrill is writing studies and rhetoric in hofstra college of liberal arts and sciences and in the fields of performance studies, cultural studies, and women's and lgbtq history. professor merrill's publications have been awarded. joe calloway book prize, oscar prize, and visiting professorship in north american

studies at the british library. sitting next to professor merrill is dr. tamika robinson, a professor of rhetoric and public avocacy and focus primarily in health, culture argumenttation and debate. she's frequently invited to give lectures throughout the u.s. and brazil and commentary to national news organization about issues of politics, health and race. dr. holly cyrus, closest to me, holds a joint appointment in the professor of counseling and mental health professions and leadership. and a member of community organizations and national and international conferences, and authored or co-authored articles ranging from hope, grit and resilience, behavioral health, college persistence and

online pedagogy. so we'll engage in this conversation with tina tchen for about 40 minutes, after which we will welcome questions from the audience and we'll conclude around 8:15. so, ms. tchen, here we are. i will lead off and i'll ask you what were your responsibilities as the chief of staff to first lady, michelle obama. >> oh, well, thank you susan, thank you for inviting me and having me here. i'm actually going to answer a different question first. [laughter] >> because to answer the chief of staff responsibilities you have to answer the question what are the responsibilities of a first lady. because one of the things we used to talk about is there's no statute, right, there's no

statutory responsibilities, there's no regulation that sets up an office of the first lady, as we used to say, there's no salary that comes with the office of being first lady of the united states. and so, entering into this, you know, you sort of come with a blank slate and had to do that. and that's one piece. that's the context for working in the east wing of the white house and then similarly chief of staff sort of follows. obviously you're the manager of the staff and we had our staff size, we kept actually very carefully at exactly the same number of staff that laura bush had, because we knew it was inevitable and it did happen where the critics would say, she's got such a huge staff. and exact same as our predecessor. and so that included the social office, which runs all of the events on the white house from the easter egg roll which just happened and the state conferences that president would hold in the residence,

and obviously scheduling in advance for the first lady, but then, you know, we had various initiatives which i know we'll get into and talk about and those morphed over time and then we had staff who worked with us on that. so, there's that management piece, but then there is the strategyiing and helping her figure out and messaging, is important in the department. how do we communicate. how do we project ourselves out into the world and that morphed over time because we were also really the first social media presidency to ever happen and she was a big part of the leading edge, i think, of how the obama administration portrayed itself in social media. >> okay. so, our next question will come from tamika. >> so, as the first african-american first lady you knew this question was coming. she's constantly framed as being a role model for girls of color and particularly for

black and brown girls. how did she feel about this framing and how it was portrayed in the media? >> so, it's one of those things where-- and she has talked about this and written about it. when you're a person of color and i've experienced this, too, you live it your whole life. she was the first, you know, or the only, or one of only a few when she went to princeton, when she was at harvard law school. when she was at the law firm. you grow up almost conscious of that. so it became a part of sort of who she wassing, knowing that. but her commitment to young people also matured and started at the white house before when she did public allies and not for profit in chicago and she spent time working as the ceo, which inspires young people to do social service.

and that connection, she always used to say that, you know, if she was tired or if, you know, a little cranky and put her in with young people and that will be the solution, we have lots of round tables and lots of go do jumping jacks on the south lawn with young people. but she did understand that the role that she had would be very important and so she used to say, you know, it was very interesting that we would, we did this on the south side of chicago at round tables with kids and in d.c. and overseas with kids, you know, young girls from different neighborhoods and she would explain that i'm like you. you know, i remember her saying this to kids who were at the round table on the south side of chicago at a school that experienced a tremendous amount of gun violence less than a mile away from where she grew

up. and she explained to kids, and say i grew up half a mile from here. i did. i walked these streets. the very streets that you walk on in this neighborhood and now here i am and you can do that, too. it was very much her message was this-- and making real clear, explaining what the south side of chicago was to students and bangladeshy schools and paint you a picture what the south side of chicago looked like. using her platform to do that was important to her and remains important to this day. >> thank you for being here. this is an exciting time, i think, for all of us and we appreciate you being here. i'm a performance historian, so it's going to be a question based on some of that. frederick douglas famously said, if there's no struggle,

there's no progress. those who favor freedom, and yes, agitation, want without plowing the ground. my question for you, tina, during the obama term in the white house, which particular struggles it you see the first lady and your office regard as necessary to take on? >> well, i'm sort of laughing and some of my colleagues from the obama administration are here, phil and nancy, and actually struggles, how many? [laughter] >> in terms of what we faced, whenever we walked into the great recession and then we walked into, you know, trying to get the affordable care act passed and walked into the repeal -- so, yeah, there were a lot of -- and your question about, you know, what did the first lady and our team view as necessary struggles, actually shaped by something that was a

guiding principle for our work that mrs. obama articulated and she said there's only one person elected in this building and everything we do on our side of the house needs to be in service of his agenda and if it's not then we've got to ask ourselves a question, why are we doing this? and what we did, the initial tifts that-- the initiatives she did and was shaped by the president's agenda and shaped by something that would not detract from his agenda in that particular moment. so that framing, what were the necessary struggles, because phil and nancy are here, the fight for affordable care act the two of them were so instrumental and clearly something that was necessary to really illuminate. i remember, this was not her chief of staff at the time. i was running the office of public engagement, but i helped

her put together a moment in the jackie kennedy garden with breast cancer survivors to really highlight, to make sure that, you know, she could be a unique messenger to women in what the importance was of the affordable care act to women's health and what that would do so there were various moments where we knew we could be a unique messenger, you know, to speak to kids or to families or to shape that and i think that's probably how we approached that, what were the necessary struggles. >> thank you. my question has to do with education. and we know that mrs. obama was such a strong advocate for post secondary education as evidented by her retire initiatives, promoting opportunities for higher education and with a goal to have the united states to have one of the highest proportions of college graduates in the world. could you please share with the roles that you think of colleges and universities today and complaints and make that goal a reality? . well, here we are.

[laughter] >> mrs. obama and the president, you know, both felt strongly that education obviously led to their success, you know, shaped their lives. mrs. obama was first generation and she and her brother, first generation in her family to graduate from college so she really understood how critical that path was, how difficult the path is for lots of kids. and you may recall because we've told the story a lot, she was -- she went to a college, a magnet school in chicago and yes, when she expressed her desire to go to princeton the college counselor whitney young, way as in the school, i don't think so. i don't think you're princeton material which to the young michelle robinson was seen as a challenge, that's who she is. so has lived it, right, so

expressed that a lot. how at that came about during 2012, the reelection campaign and most of my staff could not work on the election because they're official white house staff and the staff to think about, if we were so fortunate to get a second term, we had our initiatives, on childhood obesity, veterans and military families and we knew there was room for a third initiative and what would that be. the opening question, which is when you are the first lady and everything's in front of you, and you could do anything with this platform, making those choices, you find, it's actually exceedingly difficult to figure out where the places where you make a unique contribution and you're not doing something somebody else did, that's sufficiently worthy of the platform of the president of the united states and yet, will have a deep

enough effect and that was all the elements we tried to put together. so we hit on the college education goal because the president had articulated that as a goal, with secretary duncan and in keeping with the-- we're doing stuff in service of the president's agenda, that became the -- the president and arne duncan had the north star, fallen from the top of the world to college graduates, and how do we return that. a big pitch that mrs. obama could uniquely make given her story was first generation and disadvantaged kids on the message why you should go to college or two-year community college or technical school, something post secondary. the importance of a postsecondary education. and i think she and the president believed that's the pathway to upward mobility and

economic opportunity for kids and we did a lot of talking about selecting colleges and universities, and one of the things we talked about a lot was obviously access, increasing financial aid, increasing reaching down into high school because there were several programs and colleges doing innovative things bringing kids onto college campuses and we partnered with google who did the virtual tours on, you know, google view, whatever they call it where you could do 360 views of colleges and universities and then we went to howard to do like a tour and did an instagram thing around howard, and where high school, you know, guidance counselors were putting inner city kids together and trips to places like howard and elsewhere. schools can do more of that, pulling kids who might not think about your school and to do that and get some exposure to it. and the fear when you're in

school if you came from, first generation person to go to school if your family is struggling, the pressure on a kid who got a scholarship to go to school and spend that money not on books, but in helping their family get fed is tremendous and i think that we don't-- didn't have the good fortune not to experience that. folks in, as administrators of schools, need to pay attention and help support those kids coming from different circumstances to be able to stay in school and to be able to fully experience-- it's not just enough to give them a scholarship, you have to help them manage that and manage the scholarship and manage it together with the rest of their pressures and then to make the kids feel like they belong. she talked a lot about imposter syndrome and she felt it. and representative of how you can go through that and what you carry and what she's doing now in that and very much a message. and some of those things

institutions of higher learning can do to really promote that access or for kids. >> i think we all know that those that really penetrated, because this is what we do and this is what all universities are doing right now, particularly on the belonging. >> fantastic. >> so, it's pervasive, i would say. lisa, i think you were asking to ask? >> yes, i think, tina, if your full response, you anticipated one of my questions. so i'm going to reframe since you mentioned the new book, i'm going to ask you questions that comes from "becoming", okay. in michelle obama's "becoming", she talks about when she was taking on the huge issue of children's health, she said now that i have the benefit of operating from a huge platform, the vagueness of my new job can

be marked by new goals. and you mentioned there wasn't a prescription and then she goes on to say, here finally was a way of showing my real self. so, could you talk a little bit about that, how she perceived that? because given the wide range of things that were possible and the lack of a prescribed approach and just wondered if you could tell something about that. >> yes, so, here is the thing about mrs. obama which served us well is she is she's a goal setter, and she held us to task, which was sort of my job, was to sort of get from here -- it wasn't just, well, we'll do something with childhood obesity and do a garden. what is that going to lead to, the specific steps of different pillars. and i learned this from her when i do it a lot in my chief strategy role and expectations,

ab and it's the kind of questions i learned from her, was to be very precise and have a specific set of pillars, a pillar to really increase fruit and vegetables, and the ability-- we went to walmart, we went to cvs. we went to the-- we got the sugary drinks recused and-- reduced and then the policy and really trying to translate this very broad role around combatting childhood obesity into some very tangible outcomes that would happen. and what was fun over time, and we sort of-- this part we sort of stumbled into, there was a whole policy agenda which we worked with the domestic policy council. what people forget a lot of it came from a study that came out of the policy council and on the various policy things that could happen and we on the treasury and we're following

that, but then we hit on this other way to use her voice, which was how do you inspire kids to do it and we actually determined which she is the one who raised this that actually by the time they're teenagers it's too hard to get kids to change what they're eating. and the trouble we got into changing the snack rule and the teenagers went crazy. and her pitch was to start early, and teach them young. and she went on sesame street to learn about fruits and vegetables. and we did a kids dinner where we did a national competition and picked winners one from all 50 states on what their recipes were and they got to come to the white house with a full on east room treatment and a state dinner that we called the kid's state dinner and feature their recipes in a cookbook. so we realized that that kind of, you know, don't go on cnn to talk about it, go on

"ellen", right? and don't go on-- we went on disney shows and my daughter was a pre-teen and that was her favorite thing and all of a sudden the disney stars would show up at the easter egg roll and speak to the issues that way and penetrated. i think some of why people feel connected to her now was the thing we stumbled on was you could feel connected to michelle obama by feeding your kids something different at lunch. that's all you had to do. you didn't have to go to a place to a rally or sign up for an organization, all you had to do to feel part of that to change, put more vegetables on the table and then that empowered you and connected you to her and it connected you to this broader movement and this change and i think we really did see a culture change on health and wellness and paying attention to food and watched an ad the other night from the soda people say that 96% of,

you know, canned-- or you now have sugar. i think that came from us. and trying to put that message out there. and so, you know, that, i think, is sort of-- i think, i hope i've answered your question, i've gone around the horn a bit. but that was sort of how we kind of thought about the initiatives and once it became the model for joining forces and the forum that followed. >> thank you. >> so that's the perfect segue into my next question and though i know it's no longer your role once you're in the obama foundation. can you share what initiatives continued or what new things mrs. obama might be up to? >> so, this is from our predecessors having both the read the biograpies of our predecessors and the thing i had advantage of chief of

staff, i became very good friends with my predecessor's chief of staff. mrs. bush's chief of staff, mcbride became a dear friend and hillary clinton's chief of staff when she was first lady. they were true advisors and guide posts for me in this job which has no job description and one of the things i learned from them. where do you want to put your initiative. secretary's clinton america's first treasures and the reading initiatives that mrs. bush did got embedded with i think the library of congress. so, i spent a good chunk of 2016 figuring out and talking to mrs. obama, where would various things go. and so we were very deliberate. so let's move, actually we 501 c-3 we created as part of let's move, partnership for healthy

america, so that went to them. although, i don't think they-- they can call it let's move because it was sort of out there, but an interesting thing who owns what names. joining forces, we determined in supporting veterans and military families was really a job at that came with the building. you know, that's a job that and doing that work is part of what means to be the commander-in-chief and in military culture, if you have the commander of a unit, the spouse actually supports the family and that's very much what we were doing in that role and that one we determined and president bush was already doing a great job with veterans with the bush institute and supported them in the post white house time. i'm happy to say that dr. biden continues this, the supporting forces is happening at the white house, and led by sheila

casey, wife of george casey and retire went to the 501 c-3 and i think it's fc colleges, one of the bigger higher ed and we do college signing day every may and celebrate kids, and where they're going to college. the one she said she wanted to personally stay very much leading and vaefg investing in, the last two years to support adolescent girls education around the world and getting started at '96 when we started and 120 million girls adolescent girls around the world not able to complete their high school education. it was the back story to the founding of it is it was inspired by a visit that malala made to the president and the first lady in october of 2013. she was visiting the united states and asked to come for a visit and she and her father

came in. it's the only meeting that malia obama asked to attend because malia heard about it from her mom, what are you doing today. i'm having a meeting with malala and malia asked if she could come and turns out the timing was perfect and you'll see a picture of the three of them in the office. and we're not in it because we're back benching, but the three of us walked out and now we've got to do adolescent girls education. and what we did, this is another power of the first lady i learned by that point because it was 2013, the ability to pull people in. so we were able to marshal between the peace corps, millennia challenge, and

pulling funds together in u.s. money to support adolescent girls education and travel to japan and get a commitment from the japanese government and when prime minister trudeau came down from canada he made a commitment and continued to do that and we learned from-- we brought in activists and whenever we started an initiative we did a lot of research, not just literature research, but leading with people in the field because we never wanted to do something someone else was already doing. we wanted to respect already in the space and fill the white space, and we brought in activists and brought in leaders and girls activists around the world and including folks from africa who were in the country. and what they said, the voice rings in my ear, a singer who has a great program that don't come tell us what to do. we know what to do in our community.

so support us in our grass roots efforts and then secondly, help us connect to each other because it's great that you're bringing us to the united states every now and then and then we go home and by ourselves and we can't reach -- so creating a network, which we did virtually, and then creating a way to provide funds which we did through the peace corps. when she came out of the white house we had to reengineer that and reimagine that, but it exists at the obama foundation, the same model. a network of 4,000 now, with 5,000 in country activists who are connected to each other and we supply them with curriculums through the network, from care and u.n.i.c.e.f. and others, to help them do their work better and then we have a go-fund-me page where we feature these individual programs so people can read about them and crowd source and the organizations learn how to crowd source, but we have our own fund to top off that to make sure they all get

funded no matter what, and we will now actually expand it into the u.s. later on this year and start to do some more of that work in chicago. but that remains something she's very excited about. we launched, actually had an end launch in new york, a partner between girls opportunities lines and the gates foundation and clooney foundation, with amal clooney and mrs. obama, and combat child marriage, one of the huge barriers to girls completing their education around the world so that's very exciting to have the three of them. together the three of them share the passion and co-wrote an op-ed in, you know, around international women's day last month. so we're excited about what we're going to keep doing in the future on this. >> thank you, it's all exciting. >> yes. >> thank you. i originally was going to ask

you more about the move and particularly the garden, the white house kitchen garden, but i'm going to move on because i think-- >> i will plug the obama presidential center which will have a fruit and vegetable garden. >> wonderful. >> of course, of,could. >> let me switch a little bit and i wanted to-- clearly mrs. obama's support of military families and wellness and mental health advocating for the campaign to change direction, promoting awareness and education regarding mental health issues was a major step in the national discussion on mental health, for military families and for all families. can you share more about the campaign and the short and long-term outcome? >> so, again, this came about through -- you know, one of the things about joining forces in our journey on that is mrs. obama and i both often say, you know, we really weren't changed very much by our time in the white house except for one thing and that is our understanding and our

appreciation for the military. so we both came from, you know, non-military families from chicago, which is despite the fact that the great lakes, you know training center is just up the road, is not a military town. you don't see -- you're very separated from it and that's how we came to the white house. and it was really eye opening during the campaign. so this is when mrs. obama first had round tables with military spouses during the campaign. and heard about these multiple deployments and remember, we were in the depths of these two decades of war at the time and the strain on kids. kids who go to ten schools before they graduate high school and spouses who are juggling this all by themselves, whether their loved one is deployed and so, it's very eye opening to mrs. obama, and it was to me as we went through joining forces, and one of the critical things among-- the pillars of joining forces was employment, and there was a huge employment effort to get

companies to realize this and to hire veterans and all of the veterans now existed and started then. and education, you know, and especially for the kids transferring and military spouse education programs and the third pillar was health and it started sort of broad health and a little bit of continuation of let's move and the army did an initiative on changing the dining hall. and dining halls were terrible, if you've been on a military base, my son is a marine and i'm know you a part of it. it's taco bell, know the to say anything bad about our food chains, but the food chains and the mess isn't much better and the army initiative and highlighted to change to make things healthier. as we've been interrogating

this. but the issue was mental health, amount of suicides and brain injuries was going up. one of the things i'm most proud of, to get medical schools and nursing schools to incorporate in their curriculum training on, you know, military-- you know, ptsd and dramatic brain injury and especially with respect to military service, and those traumas and that was a huge event for the university of pennsylvania to unveil that and we had a retired general who was leading one of the tdi initiatives who we had a meeting and he said to me, you know, i was pretty skeptical thought this would be another feel-good awareness raising campaign and he said you've completely changed my mind. and that was huge to change that curriculum. we wanted to do something broader, change initiative, we lifted up the campaign that someone else designed, because

you know, we learn the types of cancers and recognize a heart attack and learn things like cpr. we don't treat mental health like we treat physical health and mrs. obama used to say you would never tell somebody with a broken leg, shake it off, go back to work and of course you can get up and walk around, walk around, your bone is hanging out of your leg, but you can walk around. that's what we do with people with serious mental health. shake it off like it's nothing and we don't learn the signs. the things that was most tragically learned, there are a lot of signs when someone, a loved one is deteriorating. you know, how they're behaving, how they're interacting, if they can't make eye contact, losing weight or gaining weight and so, learning the five signs like, you know, in the past used to learn the five signs of cancer, was that campaign a

changed direction. >> she has continued that discussion and you see mrs. obama, this morning i saw her in cvs, and talking about her own struggles and during covid and open with the relationship with the president and need to talk about it and we need to take this out of the shadows and treat it like health on parity with it, and acknowledge it, and empower individual citizens like with the-- you know, change direction to understand and empower themselves to really take action on their own mental health and i think it's changing and sadly, i think that covid has led to realization how widespread the problem is. it's something that i saw that just came out. 77% of americans at some poent

point feel depressed or mental health issues, 77%. clearly this is an issue and i'm proud of the work that we did to sort of bring that to the fore. >> i have a couple of questions since we've been talking. you've been talking about the initiatives, it sounds like the first lady and you and your team did sort of independently, although in service to the administration. to what extent was michelle obama a real advisor to the president on the issues that he was facing, the real policy issues, foreign policy issues that he was facing? did she play that role at all? first ladies have varied in that way. >> so, look, i'm not -- what was going on upstairs, but i would say as a general matter, no. and she really-- i think she's said this publicly so i'm not speaking out of school that actually

what she saw upstairs the family space, was the family space. the role upstairs, to give him that break and sit around the dinner table and talk about what sasha and malia did, that was one of the things she felt was important for her to do and actually to not interfere, we both were cognizant. and one of the things that helped in understanding of all of this, when i became chief of staff in january 2011 was about the time bill daley became the president's chief of staff and made the decision that i would be assistance to the president and one of the senior advisors of the president and carry that title and there for be in bill's 7:30 painful every morning, chief of staff meeting. ... nd robert had this dual as as

running the council on two girls so that was that was another reason to sit there but allowed us to be very much in sync with what he was doing. if there was an issue on veterans. so i did a lot of work with when denis mcdonough was chief of staff, the two of us sort of spearhead it efforts to try to make changes in the in the department of veterans affairs. you know, when there were issues that would touch upon us, we when there were issues we were very involved in a lot of the policies, sam kass became food advisor and holding us dual hatted running smooth. we've had those moments where our team was always integrated with domestic policy team for the folks doing military family work because that's always ourselves working, not independently. whenever you were going to an initiator or be out there on the south lawn we always make sure to be very coordinated in our

scheduling, in our communication strategy. you're not going to go do jumping jacks on the south lawn with the budgeted white has some serious national security policy press conference being happening on the inside of the building. became i think with a lot of the coordination were very intentional either because heth can keeping, inhe keeping with what we should do, we want to be added to do what was going on and if we're not, and got to bed we should be actually counterproductive, that was really the main concern that we had. >> thank you. i have one more questions then we will open it up to your questions in the audience. i think their microphones here on each side. last night we heard a talk by melissa harris and one of the things she saidd and i won't say it nearly as eloquently or interestingly as she did, but one of the things she said was that barack obama did not have

the sort of classic black american story, right? he was biracial. his father was from kenya. he grew up in hawaii. wasn't thert sort of classic story. of course michelle had the classic story, and that at some level although he didn't literally appropriate her story, he couldn't have got h away with that, he sort of president himself, performed the story, not exactly how sure to say, how she said it but he was able to communicate in a way that he kind of appropriated her story and that that serve them very well with the voters and his popularity and so on. there was a lot of discussion about how we did that performs and, of course, you can also do a performance for white voters. that's been -- it was very interesting. i guess my question is, first of

all, do you agree with that? and to an extent to which you agree with that, how did that sort of work in how michelle thought about it and so what? is it anything you observed and have any comment on what i'm saying? >> the way i guess i think about it, experienced it, , i've known them for a long time before, we went to the white house, is it is true, he had a very different upbringing, didn't have a father. his mother was gone for much of his life. he was raised by his grandparents in hawaii, having left his mom who stayed back in indonesia. and so what i think he found when he married michelle obama and became part of mary robinson family is, and that unity is, i

mean look, he started out as a community organizer in chicago, stated chicago, if anything it appropriated chicago as a sole data supposed to honolulu as his hometown. i guess i would think ofe it tht way.y. that's what he appropriator. you will see that story, just to give a little preview of the obama presidential center, that is how the story reads, is that his place while there's a story of his personal history, the power of place that we would show is the power to chicago and how that shaped him. he is talked about this, that organizing experience on the streets of chicago and those neighborhoods, the election of her washington as the first black mayor which was transformative for many of us myself included actually in our political activism and our connection. and it didn't think it was his becoming heart of this extended family in a lot of robinsons in chicago, that extended black family with as you say the quintessential great migration,

you know, african-american family story. that's what he became a part of. he became partrt of that family. that became also part' of his work. it's the district that he represented when he went to the illinois senate. the organizing, we can't member that's where iro met him during that time, political organizing. so i think that's where that genuinely came from. it wasn't adopted as performative in i don't know quite how melissa said it, but i wouldn't view it that way. it is true he could speak to that audience but that's because he lived it, not because he had adopted i guess is one try o say. because of that both starting in political community organizing ingh chicago and then extendingt through what he did in the robinson family and joining robinson family, and then

extending it through to his work as as a political leader in chicago which, you know, gets one parochialism from chicago if you grew up in chicago politics, gives you aen very different appreciation for race politics and rough-and-tumble community organizing politics and direct contact with voters politics. becaus' chicago voters are not shy and let you know about that. that's what i think enabled that piece. not so much. and you're right, because he went to harvard law school, he went to columbia and oxazole, because he went to the star school in honolulu, steve case, many people came out, he had that ability to also coats which, right? that's what he was doing was code switching, right, which is to speak to, you know, a nonblack audience, you know,t in that way but that also is kind

of authentic to them. i don't think, in the same way that what he was doing living come having lived as an african-american experience, could speak to the authentically. he could speak authentically from his own background, right, to an audience from his high school days. it is probablyim what enables tm to become our first black president, right, with some of who had grownwn up with one foot in not just to worlds but multiple worlds, who had the agility, you know, and the incredible mental capacity that this man, has, you know, to understand these different environments come to intellectually understand them. he has huge emotional iq. for a man who's pie get more iq than most men i i know. but also i think contributed to his ability to be that kind of person that could win the

presidency as a guy named barack hussein obama, right, in 2008. >> okay, thank you. are there questions? please feel free to lineup, editing we give students priority, but with a a questions from anybody. >> hello. my name is melvin walker. i'm a graduate student. i'm also an army veteran and they come from an army family so i appreciate you speaking about military families and mental health. i thought it was excellent. i remember when the first lady came to my graduation banquet in 2011 at west point, and she spoke particularly about the hardships and dangers of deploying. you can really hear her speaking

not only as the first lady but as a mother. so she was not only addressing cadets but she was also addressing parents. i was when it you can share a story about how she i guess engage with military families who particularly like lost loved ones? >> oh, yes. i mean, we did that a lot. we sorted saw that as a responsibility. again, as commander-in-chief the president did it. he made regular visits to walter reed. we went to walter reed on several occasions to do this, to visit the wounded and we made a sort of special place at the white house frequently or gold star families. for thosekn of you don't know, a cold start them as a family that is lost a a loved one in miliy service to our country. we had a, we create a gold star tree. so the first tree across the site if you are visitor at the

white house and you came in the east gate the person you would see would be a a gold star trn which we actually, a gold star visit youro come to actually special invited to come to the holiday celebrations, to write the name of their loved one and put that up on the tree. when you actually did also the easter, the blue room treat which is large featured tree for christmas was entirely done in for military families. and we asked gold star families just send the story of the loved one that they lost so the story would actually be displayed on the tree. to bring awareness. because so many americans just have no idea, right? and don't know about that. we would invite, you know, military moms and then military moms who had lost, you know, a loved one, you know, to the white house floor for surtees

and other events. i member especially spent some time with one family who, you know, young kids who lost their dad and sat and talked with these nine and ten year old kids, two little boys, talking about how it was said, how counseling,g to ninth and ten jeweled kits talking about going to counseling. you know, with us. so those interactions had sort of profound effects, you, know, on, on both the president and mrs. obama. it's the thing in the president has written about this, that wait upon him the most making the decision to admit in the situation room around when this and people into combat. and it was very acutely aware of that and also it was important, which both of them did and i will say present tighten and dr.

biden share this, -- president biden and dr. biden, to have them come in because it's really important inim that bubble that the white house becomes to not shy away from it.ou you know, do not not see what the effects are. it's why the president felt so strongly about going to walter reed. it's hard to member not because were removed from it but the pacing of combat, you note, right? the pacing of combat at the appointed time was pretty high,, right? and so we had a lot when walter reed was kind of full with various points in time. it was tough. so when we would all go, but it was something that both of them felt you have to face the look, look at and visit with those families. that was the responsibility as president, first lady of the united states. huge responsibility but it is a big part of it and it's not just ordering out of military troops. it's also the care for them and

their families when they come home when they don't come home. >> thank you. >> thanks so much for coming. throughout the presidency and beyond i think michelle obama certainly used her power for good. however, i was so struck during the presidency, and even during the elections of the pushback and backlash that occurred right from the beginning, terrorist fist bumps, jenna, then as a planting vegetables was aki terrible political act in some kind of way, dealing with childhood obesity, you know,e w could that be bad? but my question is then, i guess i was b taken aback by some of those responses. to what extent, what kinds of

pushback were surprising to michelle obama and to you? what surprised you about it? >> that's a really good question, becausese there was, there was a lot. i mean, i think at she wrote about this in becoming that what you don't get prepared for, look, we've all legal activists. chicago's rough-and-tumble. i don't think the clear that you get when you're on a presidential stage running for a national office in a very tough race, that was i think was unexpected. so that first you know how to buy country, right, we can go down the list, you know, which then led to the fist bump which then the angry black women mean, the level of the vitriol i think was surprising at first, but

then wewe came to expect it, right? and we knew that is going to happen. being referred to in various animal terms by certain right-wing radio people. so that we can do expect. she never watched cable news actually, and she said this publicly.sp youas know, sports and what wasn the tv during workouts, both for him and for her, or hdtv is what we watched on the plane when we were traveling to places. so that was when we do manage it was to sort of keep it -- was our job against what was part of my job, my job was to read at all,a we'd all the clips. there's something there that would rose to level something, people with after the girls then we claimed that down or something else. a lot of it you make the calculus and we would do this together with the overall white house c communications team. you got to make the calculation of do you clamp something to or be given more oxygen when you go

after something? that's a a very careful balan. more often than not we decided on the side of don't, don't do it. i'll tell you the thing that was probably the most if i had to say took it a little by surprise and we came to expected and managed it, was like criticizing her for want of the plane in shorts.th early on i think it was early on in 2009 they took a family vacation. they were on their way i think the one of the national parks. there was going to go hike. buthi before that they're goingo make us officials stopped at a national park and she got off the plane, air force one in shorts. oh, my god, you would've thought, right, that she had, whono knows what, would've been the real thing. she walked up the plate in shorts on the way to family vacation. so that surprised us, like that it would be so out, ridiculous and out of normal discourse. i will tell you, though we we learn, we got really smart into

but everything. exact ashes go and get off the plane, what we should going to wear. with fmag is a person start office just an assistant to help her, i help her, meredith, grew into over the years meredith was in all the years, a fabulous stylist who could think about this, what's the message were trying tohe convey? like in the city, what's the footing on the ground? we had to get really good at that and that's, so that was the surprising part, but a lot of it was just you had to manage it and not sink to it. i think when they go low, we go hike, right? and actually, phrase came out a lot of the waste we just operated which was you just had to undergo past. you are the first lady of the united states and are just something you're not going to engage with and you should let it roll off your back. >> my name is helen. on thent political science major here. i want to thank you, guys for

being here. this is really exciting for me. i unfortunately my question is actually very similar to the last one. i was going to ask, you know, as the first woman, of color that ever had, as a first lady she was getting an exceptional amount of criticism for every person in a public standing gets an exceptional amount of criticism, but for her it was a little bit worse. i wasas going ask and how she dealt with aas mechanically but you do touch on that the little sauce also interested in how she might have dealt with the emotionally and our family dealt with that sort of dealing with all of the racism that america has to throw at you. you know, what handles that? >> so i think, she wrote about this in becoming. it was hard and it was, in addition to dealing with it, the first of all like a lot of

celebrities, she was in the spotlight. so there's lots of attention as social media took hold over the course of the eight years. there was a lot of that. what celebrities don't have is being inn the white house where any action you take has the potential to reverberate back onto the president and onto the agenda. we all felt it. i mean, it wasn't confined just to rebut anyny of us who work there felt that you just knew that at any given moment, any slipup, amy, carrier papers across the front of the dress without folding the paper so it's a blank picture so that can't take a picture of what you are king. so name the thing that what could happen that all the sudden contumacy or bad new cycle for the president. that was a worse thing any of us wanted to do and that was exponentially the case obviously for mrs. obama who did d not, as

counter did all the things only insert a visit to do. it was also don't do things that will harm what is going on. she felt, and as i i said she writes about this in becoming. she felt that pretty accurately. almost internalize the stress because it wasn't so we talked about a lot. it wasn't something, she is incredibly strong. wasn't something that was visible, except when she got on the plane when we were on the plane after you take that last air force one right from d.c., we were flying to california where she liked cry for hours and half it's like all of a sudden it just the release of eight years plus, really ten years if you include the two years on the campaign trail, of that kind of stress everyday, anytime you in the public eye, you know, just, it did way and was really hard. i often used to say to people

who come to work at the widest there's no job you've ever done in your life that will prepare you for being in the white house. because the level of execution that is required in everything, down to the how are you letting people indicate? one of my first portable days was we didn't really have a good system for how we cleared people to the security gate. it took us a long time to get the system down. anyone little slipup like one digit is offff on some his birthdate they're stuck at the gate. queen reign of jordan was coming to visit. queen reign of jordan was coming to pick up come for the most visible gate that the present of a comes through over pennsylvania avenue. she was stuck. we could not get her in. the press of watching the queen stellaof pennsylvania avenue trying to get in. it's little things likeha that come right? gets reported. all of those things at the level of execution that you have two, the tight rope was tremendous

and, therefore, the strain that was placed on everybody who works there to really obviously to the best because the country is aa line on your decisions, give the presence right information about how to make a policy decision, how to interact to get a bill passed. and the also the level of scrutiny that is placed upon you is not like anything anyone will ever expense in j any other job. i don't care if you're the ceo of a $3 billion company company, you will not get that, other than in the white house. >> thank you. >> good evening. my name is alice tina goolsbee and a resident of instead, the homo hofstra university. and ink just want to thank you first of all for bringing the insight into probably one of the mostto graceful first ladies to

ever serve. i have to say there's no classic black story. 'you're right. i'm grateful for that. my moms was here in the audiene is the first african-american to be elected to the town council in over 300 year history. her name is deputy supervisor dorothy l goolsbee and senior councilwoman as well. she did come to new york as part of the great migration come her and my dad, from the rural south and were able to raise us in a life of service that i'm so grateful for. i took that to wall street and i've been a a private equity investor for over 16 years, and i was on my way to raising my

first official find, and i was stopped in my tracks when i went to carnegie hall on february 27. robert smith is like my brother, and had his come there, was actually birthday as well. they had a fireside chat that was called the powered network, network, and he talked about this deadline of june 30. and i really didn't know what it meant. i knew it had something to do with broadband. we were not going to miss out on something else that could help us elevate our community. we missed out on the g.i. bill, the homestead act cited know what it was. we travel to mexico to finish celebrating my mother, i won't tell her age, finish celebrating her birthday in mexico with one of my brilliant friends who's

also in technology and finance. and what it happens to be, and i would love to hear some of your thoughts, and i'm sure first lady obama has thought about this as well. there are 101 hbcus, 70 of those hbcus are broadband deserts. 50% of the doctors, lawyers, other professionals of color come from those hbcus. i spoke to a friend of mine went to alabama state, and he said that they had to bring a bus to put the kidshe on so they couldo their homework because there's no broadband. so i i say on that day my lifs interrupted from raising our first official find to being in

a place where i've been tasked to raise $30 million to eradicate that, just the staff, the offices that have to fill out the grant applications that float up to the state level and then the federal level. so i i stop what i'm doing bee it's like being to deployed. one of my partners, yeah, it is. she is a graduate of west point, tracy lloyd, and we're dedicating the funds that we are racing to emily perez. she was the first black woman to be killed in iraq. and that's a sister of ours, right? soso who better to dedicate this to, to someone who is protected us as a nation? but that's a lot to say. hasth anything, have you been thinking about this issue?? because there's going to be a generation that could possibly

be left far behind if this isn't addressed. well, first of all, and a round of applause for your mom which is amazing. i think, thank y you for being here. i'm honored by the fact that you are here. so on hbcus i will say while we were in office we made it a point during the graduation cycles, we always gave a commencement address at in hbcu. that was like, that's why she gave the very famous speech at tuskegee which i think was our last one. so focused on hbcus and we're shining a light on them, something we did, we did care a lot about. i will say in the current environment we are no longer in the policymaking spot. but i do know just separately from other work that i do a little bit about what's going on now, and i would direct you to

do things. i know that the biden administration has put actually money directed to hbcus. so the spin,to they succeeded where we were unable to make a big investment in hbcus. so the hbcus you are working with make sure they get access to that. secondly, i also know as part of the inflation reduction act there is a tremendous amount of money in reducing broadband deserts. i don't exactly i canan tell you how to access that because again i'm not in the administration. but i do know that comcast has invested a lot and is very committed to racial equity and n what they're trying to do, something they've been investing their own money as well so people can get access to the federal broadband money. if you arene not connected to that, i would suggest doing so. [inaudible] >> okay. [inaudible] >> yeah.

[inaudible] you need a certain amount of funding. >> yeah. no, we know. [inaudible] >> all right. all right. [inaudible] >> yeah, i know he has. yeah, he's been great, what robert doing is amazing. actually know about that. i know it's been a priority of the currenton administration. obviously, which is something that we support.if >> i think with time maybe for one more question if anybody has got something. >> i'm a graduate of hofstra inquiry on the women in leadership board. but i just had a question. i think any time we do work that we have a job and it's done, we

look back and we say, what could we have done differently? is there anything, iser maybe a lot -- >> i feel likebe there's a lot. >> is or something that comes to mind that at the top of the list you would say michelle would go back and say wish we could've done that differently? >> i don't know, and trying to, ensure that there are and i'm sure that we had talked about it but i'm not, there's not an immediate like should have done that differently kind of conversations.he i wish we'd started the mental health stuff earlier because the reseller things that got started late and we ran out of runway. whole mental health change in direction that got started late in the administration we just sort of ran out, there could've been more to do in ran out of time to do that. u you know, we did a lot of mentoring work that was

individual i think we would like to dip or ask you. we have mentees come into the white house. we never scaled of that. it wasas hard to do it there's a lot of mentoring programs after so we couldn't figure out how to expand that. so we did will be covered with the girls that we brought in to mentor. so that's probably one in which -- trying to figure out the could've done more to scale that and get funds for that. might be onene thing. it's also been like six years, so six hard years and as we all know, so i will confess to a little a little memory loss on some of those things. but it is come the loss of one way i would you say which we didn't talk about is even though we had to terms and over eight years, it is really a short period of time. you know, that you because the time is broken up. so for sure the first term is in

to your child's becauseng of the midterms and then you are running for reelection very quickly and comes up really fast. and even in the second term, because you've got still a legislative calendar that you're trying to do with anything you are very cognizant of what could happen at the end and how do you think about h the legacy you wee leaving at how do you solidify those things in the policies that won't immediately be overturned, especially when we had trouble passing legislation that would be overturned so we are dealing with executive orders that could be overturned. so there are lots of regrets, regrets probably on that front. we collectively regret having leftrm immigration reform, not being able to get that as far as finally had to do daca by executive order, the dream act, and how that will still be able

to continue for the families and individuals. but overall, immigration reform remains something that i think we all sort of wished we could do. you run out of runway and you think about things we were able to do when we had the majority. then you just, you don't have enough time after that to put the things together. it's something that i think they're actually handling quite well in the biden administration right now the amount ofwi things they want to do with the majority. and it's something i wish, we wish we would've had a a majoy for longer than we did to be able to do those. >> well, please join me in thanking tina tchen for a really wonderful presentation. [applause] ♪ may not. >> if you enjoy american history giving sign-up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive a weekly

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