Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama (2013)

Barack and Michelle Obama (2008)

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (* 17th January 1964 in Chicago , Illinois , as Michelle LaVaughn Robinson ) is an American lawyer and author . As the wife of 44th US President Barack Obama, she was the First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 .

Life

Origin and education

Michelle Robinson was born in 1964 as the daughter of the former butcher and later retrained as a machinist Fraser Timothy Robinson (1935-1991) and the secretary Marian Robinson (née Shields; * 1937) in south Chicago, where she was with her brother Craig, who was almost two years older grew up in simple circumstances in a one-room apartment on the South Side . Their ancestors were mostly African-American slaves from the southern states and their descendants who had come to Chicago during the Great Migration from the 1880s . Among Michelle Robinson's ancestors was the slave owner Henry W. Shields, according to a DNA analysis in 2012 according to the New York Times . Her parents met in the late 1950s while Robinson was a lifeguard, and they married in October 1960.

Her childhood and youth were shaped by the social and demographic changes in her home district and her father's disease of multiple sclerosis . She graduated from Whitney Young Magnet High School in 1981 . She then began studying sociology as a major and a minor in African American studies at Princeton University , which she completed with a Bachelor of Arts in 1985. Immediately thereafter, she moved to Harvard University , where she completed her training in 1988 with a Juris Doctor degree .

She was initially a member of the Methodist Church , later joined with her husband in the United Church of Christ , an association of Lutheran and Reformed Christians.

Until Barack Obama's candidacy for president

After graduating from Harvard, Michelle Robinson was a member of the Chicago office of Sidley & Austin law firm , where she worked primarily on property rights and marketing . There she met her future husband, Barack Obama, when he took on a summer replacement in the firm as an intern and she took on the role of his mentor. The two married in October 1992 at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The couple have two daughters, Malia Ann (* 1998) and Natasha ("Sasha", * 2001) through artificial insemination to reduce the risk of another miscarriage.

After she left the firm, she moved to the Chicago city council as an advisor to the mayor and assistant for planning and urban development . Valerie Jarrett , who later became presidential advisor , was her manager at the time. In parallel, Michelle Obama became executive director of the Chicago office of the non-governmental organization "Public Allies" in 1993 .

Another turning point in her professional career was in 1996 when she moved from city administration to the University of Chicago , where she was initially responsible for developing the University Community Service Center, before becoming Executive Director and later Vice President for Community and External affairs took on more responsibility. At the same time she was on the board of TreeHouse Foods Inc. operates.

In 2008, three months after Barack Obama's presidential candidacy was announced, Michelle Obama interrupted her own professional career and devoted herself entirely to her husband's election campaign.

Election campaign and first lady

Michelle Obama speaking at the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver , Colorado

In the running for her husband's candidacy for the US presidency, Michelle Obama gave campaign speeches and aroused lively media interest in her person through numerous interviews and appearances on television. She often caught the eye with ironic comments and anecdotes about the Obama's family life. After Barack Obama's chances of holding the American presidency increased, however, she held back more and more with such statements.

In various interviews, both Michelle and Barack Obama exposed their political influence on their husbands. So edited Michelle Obama about his speeches regularly and supported him as a consultant with his application for the post of president. She was ranked 9th Most Influential Graduate of Harvard Law School in December 2008 . In late 2011, she was increasingly seen as a critic of how things were going in the White House.

When her husband was inaugurated in 2009, Michelle Obama wore a highly acclaimed St. Gallen lace dress

After Obama's election as 44th President of the United States, she became the new First Lady in the White House . During her husband's representative appearances, she was always at his side. The press reported extensively about her appearance, which was considered to be stylish and fashionable. She made a high-profile political speech at a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy in Manchester, New Hampshire, on October 13, 2016 . In it, she expressed disbelief at the sound recording, which had become known a few days earlier, in which Clinton's competitor Donald Trump had bragged about his sexual assault on women.

Michelle Obama was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the cover of the March 2009 US issue of Vogue magazine . Vogue has featured every first lady (with the exception of Bess Truman ) in a photo report since 1929 ; Obama was the second first lady on the front page after Hillary Clinton . She was featured again on the cover of the April 2013 issue of Vogue .

Michelle Obama appeared in supporting roles in the episode Visit the First Lady of the youth series iCarly , in the episode From the White House to Our House in the youth series Jessie and the episode Henry (Homefront) in the series Navy CIS and each played herself.

Michelle Obama as US First Lady having tea with her "successor in office" Melania Trump in the Yellow Oval Room in the White House (November 10, 2016)

Controversy

In the 2008 US primary election campaign, her testimony about her pride in the United States of America was controversial. As a reaction to the Republican criticism of her statement that she now felt pride for her country for the first time, she emphasized in the further course of the election campaign how much she loved her country. In particular, her speech to the Democratic National Convention in August 2008, which referred to this criticism , was largely well received and received mostly positive comments. According to a survey by Rasmussen Reports, it achieved approval ratings of 55% among Americans for the first time.

According to a biography of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (Carla et les ambitieux) published in September 2010, Michelle Obama is said to have said to her that her work as first lady was "hell". Both Obama's press spokeswoman and the French embassy in Washington denied the alleged statement. In addition, Bruni-Sarkozy distanced himself from the authors of her biography, which was not authorized.

memoirs

Michelle Obama published her memoir on November 13, 2018 under the title Becoming . The book was published with an initial worldwide print run of three million copies and translations in 31 languages. According to the Bertelsmann Group, the book had sold over 10 million times by March 2019. In the three-part book (“Becoming me”, “Becoming us”, “Becoming more”) she writes openly about issues such as racism during her college years at Princeton, her attempts to get pregnant, and her husband's frequent absence because of his political life Career. She also wrote that she had worked on her partnership with the help of marriage counseling and that she had not pursued any political ambitions of her own. She described her husband's successor, Donald Trump , as a "misogynist bully" and heavily criticized him for having questioned the authenticity of Barack Obama's birth certificate. Trump endangered the safety of her family.

A reviewer praised the book on Spiegel Online : "Unlike [Hillary] Clinton or [Laura] Bush , however, Obama writes in flashing vignettes that could sometimes be taken from a novel by Michael Chabon or Donna Tartt ." Susanne Mayer praised on ZEIT ONLINE : "What is new and unheard of about the former First Lady's autobiography, however, is the relentless self-criticism with which she reviews her previous life."

The publication of her book was combined with a reading tour for which stadiums were rented.

Her book was filmed with her as a documentary ( Becoming - My Story ). The film was released on Netflix on May 6, 2020 .

Honors

In 2017 a spider native to Cuba was named after her: Spintharus michelleobamaae . In 2019 Michelle Obama was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Fonts

• American grown. The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America . Written by Lyric Winik and White House staff. Crown Books, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-307-95602-6 (non-fiction).

• BECOMING - My story . From the American by Harriet Fricke, Tanja Handels, Elke Link, Andrea O'Brien , Jan Schönherr , Henriette Zeltner. Goldmann, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-442-31487-4 (autobiography).

literature

• Nancy Kegan Smith, Diana B. Carlin: First Lady Michelle Obama: The American Dream Endures. In Katherine AS Sibley (Ed.): A Companion to First Ladies. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2016, ISBN 978-1-118-73222-9 , pp. 677-715.
• Liza Mundy : Michelle Obama. Translated from the English by Norbert Juraschitz and Michael Bayer. Torch bearer, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-7716-4407-9 .

Web links

Commons : Michelle Obama  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Wikiquote: Michelle Obama  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Michelle Obama in the catalog of the German National Library
• Michelle Obama in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Biography on the White House website (English, no longer available)
• The Family Tree of Michelle Obama, the First Lady , The New York Times (English)
• Michelle Obama in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)
• The American Presidency Project: Michelle Obama. University of California, Santa Barbara databasewith documents on all American presidents and their environment

swell

• “I'm in the game” , Berliner Zeitung
• Michelle Obama - the black Hillary , Die Welt
• The New York Post about Michelle Obama
• The New York Times on Michelle Obama
• Concentrated woman power for Barack Obama , Der Standard
• Michelle Obama and the candidate's charisma , Der Spiegel
• Biographical information from the National First Ladies' Library (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Betty Boyd Caroli: First ladies: from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama . Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford (et al.) 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-539285-2 , pp. 339 .
2. ↑ Nancy Kegan Smith, Diana B. Carlin: First Lady Michelle Obama: The American Dream Endures, I. In Katherine AS Sibley (Ed.): A Companion to First Ladies. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2016, ISBN 978-1-118-73222-9 , pp. 677-695; here: p. 680f.
   Rachel L. Swarns: Meet Your Cousin, the First Lady: A Family Story, Long Hidden . New York Times, June 16, 2012.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Fricke, Harriet, Handels, Tanja 1971-, Wilhelm-Goldmann-Verlag Munich: Becoming: my story . German first edition, 1st edition. Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-442-31487-4 .
4. ^ Betty Boyd Caroli: First ladies: from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama . Oxford University Press, New York 2010, p. 342.
5. ↑ Caroline Rosales: Why Michelle Obama's book is so important for women, Abendblatt.de, November 12, 2018
6. ↑ 'I felt like I had failed': Michelle Obama reveals she had miscarriage and used IVF to conceive daughters
7. ↑ Michelle Obama - the black Hillary. In: The world
8. ↑ The Harvard 100. ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Jodi Kantor: Michelle Obama and the Evolution of a First Lady. In: The New York Times , January 6, 2012.
10. ↑ cf. St. Galler Tagblatt from January 22, 2009.
11. ↑ Karzai wants to remain Afghan President. Retrieved June 25, 2019 . 
12. ↑ available from the C-Span video archive : Michelle Obama Campaign Appearance in Manchester, New Hampshire. Southern New Hampshire University's Field House in Manchester, New Hampshire, October 13, 2016, accessed October 17, 2016.
13. ↑ Caitlin Dickson: Michelle Obama aims blistering speech at Donald Trump: 'No woman deserves to be treated this way' . In: Yahoo News , October 13, 2016.
14. ↑ Michelle Obama makes Vogue cover ( English ) 11 February 2009. Retrieved on 11 February, 2009.
15. ↑ https://www.waz.de/panorama/michelle-obama-posiert-zum-zweiten-mal-fuer-die-vogue-id7728071.html
16. ↑ US election campaign on YouTube - Republicans slaughter Michelle Obama's five-second error from Spiegel Online from May 16, 2008.
17. ^ Nagourney, Adam: Appeals evoking American Dream rally Democrats . In: The New York Times , August 26, 2008. Retrieved September 22, 2010. 
18. ↑ Pallasch, Abdon M .: Michelle Obama celebrates Chicago roots . In: Chicago Sun-Times , August 26, 2008. Archived from the original on August 29, 2008 Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved September 22, 2010.  
19. ↑ Helman, Scott: Reaching back to her Chicago roots, Obama tells an American story . In: Boston Globe , August 26, 2008. Retrieved September 22, 2010. 
20. ↑ Suellentrop, Chris: Michelle Obama's high note . In: The New York Times , August 25, 2008. Retrieved September 22, 2010. 
21. ↑ Michelle Obama Favorable Rating Reaches Highest Level Ever . In: Rasmussen Reports . August 29, 2008. Archived from the original on September 12, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 12, 2008. 
22. ↑ Michelle Obama: "It's hell" - Vortex about dialogue between Michelle and Carla in the new Bruni scandal book Austria (newspaper) of September 17, 2010.
23. ↑ Allen, Peter: "It's hell. I can't stand it!" Carla Bruni reveals what Michelle Obama REALLY thinks of being First Lady . In: Daily Mail , September 16, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2010. 
24. ↑ Adams, Richard: Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy deny 'hell' remark . In: The Guardian , September 16, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2010. 
25. ↑ CNN Wire Staff: Bruni denies Michelle Obama liked White House life to 'hell' . In: CNN , September 21, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2010. 
26. ↑ Madison, Lucy: Carla Bruni: Michelle Obama Never Called White House "Hell" . In: CBS News , September 21, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2010. 
27. ^ How the Trump Campaign Is Drawing Obama Out of Retirement (en) . In: The New York Times , June 28, 2020. Retrieved July 10, 2020. 
28. ↑ Michelle Obama publishes her memoir in November. In: orf.at , February 26, 2018, accessed on February 26, 2018.
29. ↑ Arno Frank: With force. In: Spiegel Online , November 13, 2018, accessed on November 14, 2018.
30. ↑ Bertelsmann accelerates the pace . New Westphalian March 27, 2019
31. ↑ BBC News , March 26, 2019, accessed April 28, 2019
32. ↑ Michelle Obama's Memoirs: A Review, Not an Application . In: tagesschau.de , November 13, 2018, accessed on November 13, 2018.
33. ↑ Arno Frank : With force. In: Spiegel Online , November 13, 2018, accessed April 28, 2019.
34. ↑ Your statement , ZEIT ONLINE November 16, 2018, accessed on April 28, 2019
35. ↑ Michelle Obama's memoir is much more than a settlement with Trump. In: handelsblatt.com , November 14, 2018, accessed November 15, 2018.
36. ↑ Ingi Agnarsson et al .: A radiation of the ornate Caribbean 'smiley-faced spiders', with descriptions of 15 new species (Araneae: Theridiidae, Spintharus). In: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. zlx056, 2017, doi: 10.1093 / zoolinnean / zlx056
37. ↑ Michelle Obama Reveals How Her White House Garden Grows (s) . In: The New York Times , May 29, 2012. Retrieved June 5, 2019. “Mrs. Obama had lots of help writing her book. In addition to Lyric Winik, a Washington writer who worked with Laura Bush on her book “Spoken From the Heart,” there are White House staff members “ 
38. ↑ Michelle Obama champions vegetable gardens and healthy food in 'American Grown' (s) . In: The Washington Post , August 2, 2012. "The book, written with Washington journalist Lyric Winik and others"