The Editors of Essence - The Obamas: The White House Years

COLLECTORS EDITION

THE
OBAMAS
THE WHITE HOUSE YEARS

CONTENTS

JUNE 16, 2014, Washington, D.C.
President and First Lady Obama stroll from Marine One on the South Lawn following a trip to California.

CHAPTER ONE

PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

On November 4, 2008, Senator Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States. Over the next eight years, he would transform our nation and transfix millions of supporters.

2008, Washington, D.C.
A focused Obama ready to take flight during his first presidential campaign.

REMEMBRANCE

AMAZING GRACE

On June 26, 2015, President Obama eulogized the Honorable Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney, pastor of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Pinckney was one of nine parishioners murdered in their church home. Within those storied walls, President Obama delivered his most significant speech during his leadership tenure.

JUNE 26, 2015, Charleston, SC
While delivering a gut-wrenching eulogy, Obama belts out the spiritual Amazing Grace.

Giving all praise and honor to God. The Bible calls us to hope. To persevere, and have faith in things not seen. [ Applause .]

They were still living by faith when they died, Scripture tells us. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on Earth.

We are here today to remember a man of God who lived by faith. A man who believed in things not seen. A man who believed there were better days ahead, off in the distance. A man of service who persevered, knowing full well he would not receive all those things he was promised, because he believed his efforts would deliver a better life for those who followed.

To Jennifer, his beloved wife; to Eliana and Malana, his beautiful, wonderful daughters; to the Mother Emanuel family and the people of Charleston, the people of South Carolina.

I cannot claim to have the good fortune to know Reverend Pinckney well. But I did have the pleasure of knowing him and meeting him here in South Carolina, back when we were both a little bit younger. [ Laughter .] Back when I didnt have visible grey hair. [ Laughter .] The first thing I noticed was his graciousness, his smile, his reassuring baritone, his deceptive sense of humorall qualities that helped him wear so effortlessly a heavy burden of expectation.

Friends of his remarked this week that when Clementa Pinckney entered a room, it was like the future arrived; that even from a young age, folks knew he was special. Anointed. He was the progeny of a long line of the faithfula family of preachers who spread Gods word, a family of protesters who sowed change to expand voting rights and desegregate the South. Clem heard their instruction, and he did not forsake their teaching.

He was in the pulpit by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by 23. He did not exhibit any of the cockiness of youth, nor youths insecurities; instead, he set an example worthy of his position, wise beyond his years, in his speech, in his conduct, in his love, faith, and purity.

As a senator, he represented a sprawling swath of the Low-country, a place that has long been one of the most neglected in America. A place still wracked by poverty and inadequate schools; a place where children can still go hungry and the sick can go without treatment. A place that needed somebody like Clem. [ Applause .]

His position in the minority party meant the odds of winning more resources for his constituents were often long. His calls for greater equity were too often unheeded; the votes he cast were sometimes lonely. But he never gave up. He stayed true to his convictions. He would not grow discouraged. After a full day at the capitol, hed climb into his car and head to the church to draw sustenance from his family, from his ministry, from the community that loved and needed him. There he would fortify his faith and imagine what might be.

Reverend Pinckney embodied a politics that was neither mean nor small. He conducted himself quietly, and kindly, and diligently. He encouraged progress not by pushing his ideas alone, but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with you to make things happen. He was full of empathy and fellow feeling, able to walk in somebody elses shoes and see through their eyes. No wonder one of his senate colleagues remembered Senator Pinckney as the most gentle of the 46 of usthe best of the 46 of us.

Clem was often asked why he chose to be a pastor and a public servant. But the person who asked probably didnt know the history of the AME church. [ Applause .] As our brothers and sisters in the AME church know, we dont make those distinctions. Our calling, Clem once said, is not just within the walls of the congregation, butthe life and community in which our congregation resides. [ Applause .]

He embodied the idea that our Christian faith demands deeds and not just words; that the sweet hour of prayer actually lasts the whole week long [ applause ]; that to put our faith in action is more than individual salvation, its about our collective salvation; that to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and house the homeless is not just a call for isolated charity but the imperative of a just society.

What a good man. Sometimes I think thats the best thing to hope for when youre eulogizedafter all the words and recitations and resumes are read, to just say someone was a good man. [ Applause .]

You dont have to be of high station to be a good man. Preacher by 13. Pastor by 18. Public servant by 23. What a life Clementa Pinckney lived. What an example he set. What a model for his faith. And then to lose him at 41slain in his sanctuary with eight wonderful members of his flock, each at different stages in life but bound together by a common commitment to God.

Cynthia Hurd. Susie Jackson. Ethel Lance. DePayne Middleton-Doctor. Tywanza Sanders. Daniel L. Simmons. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. Myra Thompson. Good people. Decent people. God-fearing people. [ Applause .] People so full of life and so full of kindness. People who ran the race, who persevered. People of great faith.

To the families of the fallen, the nation shares in your grief. Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church. The church is and always has been the center of African-American life [ applause ], a place to call our own in a too often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships.

Over the course of centuries, black churches served as hush harbors where slaves could worship in safety; praise houses where their free descendants could gather and shout hallelujah [ applause ]; rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad; bunkers for the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement. They have been, and continue to be, community centers where we organize for jobs and justice; places of scholarship and network; places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harms way, and told that they are beautiful and smart [ applause ] and taught that they matter. [ Applause .] Thats what happens in church.