5 of the most poignant moments of Barack Obama’s presidency
President Barack Obama’s eight years in office were marked by countless moments to be remembered by both supporters and critics. At a particularly polarized moment in modern American history, Obama’s presidency can provoke strong emotions on both sides.
But as the first black president in the 240-year history of the United States flies out of Washington, D.C., on Friday, he leaves a few resounding moments that transcend party lines.
1. “I want to know if my hair is just like yours”
Five-year-old Jacob Philadelphia touches President Barack Obama’s hair.
In May 2009, Obama was hosting a departing staff member for a traditional family photograph in the Oval Office, when the staffer’s son, 5-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, posted the president a question. Per The New York Times:
“I want to know if my hair is just like yours,” he told Mr. Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.
Jacob did, and Mr. Obama replied, “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?”
The president lowered his head to allow Jacob to touch his hair, and Jacob remarked, “It does feel the same.” White House photographer Pete Souza snapped a quick photo of the exchange, which hung in the White House for years after, as a striking symbolic reminder of the significance of America’s first black president.
Souza told Time magazine that it’s his favorite moment with the president.
“In many ways, this photograph became a symbol on what it meant to others for him to be the first African-American president,” he said. “But it also showed–even though he was the President of the United States and the ‘most powerful man in the world’–that it was okay to just be a regular guy.”
2. Obama’s response to the Sandy Hook shooting
In a tearful speech following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012, Obama called for “meaningful action” and for the country to remember the 26 victims, including 20 children, of yet another mass shooting.
This evening, Michelle and I will do what I know every parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter and we’ll tell them that we love them, and we’ll remind each other how deeply we love one another. But there are families in Connecticut who cannot do that tonight. And they need all of us right now. In the hard days to come, that community needs us to be at our best as Americans. And I will do everything in my power as President to help.
A former White House advance staffer later recalled in a book how Obama spent the hours following the shooting in Newtown, meeting with hundreds of the 26 victims’ close relatives one-by-one, hugging, comforting, and asking about their lost loved one.
3. Marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma civil rights march
President Barack Obama, center, walks as he holds hands with Amelia Boynton, who was beaten during “Bloody Sunday,” as they and the first family and others, including Rep. John Lewis, left of Obama, walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 2015, for the 50th anniversary of ”Bloody Sunday,” a landmark event of the civil rights movement.
“We know the march is not yet over,” Obama said in a 2015 speech from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where 50 years earlier civil rights demonstrators had been beaten by police in what is colloquially known as “Bloody Sunday.”
Marching with Rep. John Lewis, of Georgia, who was present and injured in the 1965 demonstration, the president honored the bravery of those original protesters.
“That’s what it means to love America,” Obama said. “That’s what it means to believe in America. That’s what it means when we say America is exceptional.”
4. Amazing Grace
It’s not often the president leads a choir in song. But following the hateful killing of nine worshippers at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, the moment called for it.
During an impassioned eulogy of the church’s slain reverend in June 2015, Obama broke out a rendition of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” at first by himself, but quickly joined by thousands of mourners in the crowd.
5. Capping off a ‘bromance’
Vice President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama at the White House last week.
In one of his final acts as president, Obama honored the work of his right-hand man in the White House: Vice President Joe Biden.
In a surprise ceremony (Biden was summoned for what he was told was a small, private farewell event), Obama awarded the vice president the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the country’s highest civilian honor. Completely shocked, Biden—in the last week of a long and at times tragic career in public service—broke into tears.
“To know Joe Biden is to know love without pretense, service without self-regard, and to live life fully,” Obama said, at times referring to his governing partner of eight years as “my brother.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_77ix2o4KbE
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