- 6/11/2025
On the day Barack Obama takes office, Michael Kirk explores how Obama's life experiences and political career allowed him to his becoming America's first Black president.
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00:45Tonight on Frontline, you have people who never thought that they would see something like this in their lifetime.
00:50He's smart enough to look into the future and gutsy enough to take it on.
00:55Very idealistic, very romantic, very symbolic, and very much charisma-driven.
01:00Obama has got inner toughness.
01:02The velvet glove around the steel fist.
01:05Somebody who started out as a state senator, was now the Democratic president of the United States, that's a pretty spectacular rise in 12 years.
01:12This is our moment.
01:13This is our time.
01:15To restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace.
01:17He really believes that he has something to offer, and that he can make a difference in the way people live their lives.
01:25Tonight on Frontline, the story of Barack Obama, his life and his rise to the presidency.
01:33Dreams of Obama.
01:34The delegates are trickling into Boston.
01:5535,000 people are expected to descend on Boston.
01:58The convention is being held in the heart of this...
02:00In July 2004, as the Democrats were nominating John Kerry, a young newcomer was about to steal the show.
02:07The next senator from the state of Illinois, Barack Obama.
02:14The buzz was there was this up-and-coming young state senator from Illinois.
02:18Most people probably couldn't pronounce his name.
02:20Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely.
02:32My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya.
02:38He really emerged from very, I think, unlikely circumstances.
02:43His mother was a young woman who had been raised in the Midwest.
02:47She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas.
02:51She met in a Russian class, a student from Africa during her freshman year, named Barack Obama.
02:58My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation.
03:04They very quickly got married, and Senator Obama was born in August of that year.
03:11In his first book, Obama writes about his parents' struggle.
03:15The year that my parents were married, miscegenation still described a felony in over half the states in the Union.
03:21In many parts of the South, my father could have been strung up from a tree for merely looking at my mother the wrong way.
03:27They would give me an African name, Barack, or Blessed, believing that in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success.
03:34But his father only stayed for a couple of years, and then he went to study at Harvard and left the mom and the son behind.
03:46The marriage really fell apart at that point.
03:49He ultimately moved back to Africa.
03:52He would only see his American son one other time.
03:57There were other women and seven other children.
03:59His whole family seems to have been pretty free-thinking.
04:05And they seem to have been a pretty non-conformist household.
04:08And certainly his mother went on to be a very free-thinking and much-traveled person.
04:13His mother remarried.
04:15They moved to Indonesia.
04:17But her ambitions for her son were decidedly American.
04:21She came into my room at four in the morning, force-fed me breakfast, and proceeded to teach me my English lessons for three hours before I left for school and she went to work.
04:32I offered stiff resistance to this regiment.
04:34She would patiently repeat her most powerful defense.
04:38This is no picnic for me either, buster.
04:39I think she felt like, here's this African-American child whose father has left him.
04:47He may suffer from some self-esteem issues.
04:51So she built his character up from the very beginning.
04:54She told him he was from almost a superior race of people, that he was a special person, to the point that he seems to still believe that today.
05:02I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on earth is my story even possible.
05:18Before the speech, behind the scenes, they watched Obama prepare.
05:23He was like an athlete gearing up for the big game.
05:27And he kind of looked like that.
05:28And even when I asked him, is he going to be a big bust tonight, or is he going to be a big star?
05:35And he said, well, you know, I got some game.
05:37I can play at this level.
05:38I'm LeBron, baby.
05:40He was comparing himself, obviously, to LeBron James, the phenom in the NBA at that point.
05:47If there is a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me even if it's not my child.
05:52If there is an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.
06:05Backstage, his wife Michelle offered her advice.
06:08Michelle, she didn't want him to go out there and come across as too arrogant.
06:12She gave this little, don't screw it up, buddy, line to him, which probably calmed his nerves a little bit.
06:21There is not a liberal America and a conservative America.
06:25There is the United States of America.
06:29There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America.
06:36There's the United States of America.
06:38I knew much of it was rhetorical, and when he said there's no white America, there's no black America, I kind of winced a little bit, because I know that there is certainly a black America.
06:51But I understood where he was coming from.
06:54Hope in the face of difficulty.
06:57Hope in the face of uncertainty.
07:00The audacity of hope.
07:02Michelle sees this happening, and she has tears streaming down her cheeks.
07:17I'm sitting in the crowd, and a woman next to me is crying, bawling her eyes out, and she just keeps screaming, this is history, this is history.
07:27We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
07:36The speech he gave in 2004 was a stump speech that he gave.
07:42I mean, I was literally watching it on television and, like, reciting it, and I was calling a friend of mine, and both of us were cracking up that this was the same speech that he used to give to crowds of, like, ten people.
07:53Or in some church on the south side where, you know, no one knew how to pronounce his name, and, you know, they were just meeting him for the first time, and this was the speech he would give.
08:01Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you.
08:06This guy's going for us.
08:08This is like watching Tiger Woods.
08:09It's amazing. He's still a state senator in Illinois.
08:14Immediately, the pundits and journalists began casting Obama in a new light.
08:18Forget the uniders and dividers. Tonight we heard from a transcender.
08:22He lit it up.
08:23People talk about him quite openly as the first black president of the United States.
08:31Obama is expected to be thrown into the limelight.
08:36He can barely show his face in public without creating some kind of...
08:40January 2005.
08:42It's been five months since Barack Obama's speech at the convention in Boston.
08:46Now, he's the newly elected senator from Illinois.
08:50Michelle, this is Sasha.
08:52And he arrives in the Senate a celebrity in the way that sort of Hillary Clinton was a celebrity when she arrived.
08:59The Democrats had failed to recapture the White House or the Congress.
09:05Obama was their superstar, and to many, their future.
09:10He was sort of a person who Democrats were placing their hopes in.
09:14Thank you so much, Mr. Vice President.
09:16The veterans knew it in their bones.
09:19They gathered around him.
09:20He came to the Senate almost immediately with everyone's high expectations.
09:26If our answer isn't yes.
09:28With everyone's assumption that this was a man who was on a fast track.
09:33Former Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle had lost his bid for re-election.
09:38As he left, he decided to protect and nurture the party's newest asset.
09:43He was looking for staff.
09:45I had what I considered to be some of the best staff on the Hill.
09:50Daschle's top aide, Pete Rouse, was so powerful, they called him the 101st senator.
09:56Rouse wanted to retire.
09:58Obama courted him.
10:00I may be the one person in politics who have never seen a speech at the convention.
10:04I've never seen it, never even read it, for that matter.
10:07You know, which I probably shouldn't admit to.
10:10Obama got his man.
10:12Rouse signed on.
10:13You could tell he had the magic.
10:15What he said to me, I know what I'm good at.
10:17I know what I'm not good at.
10:18I can give a good speech.
10:20But I don't have any idea what it's like to get established in the Senate.
10:23They wanted more than anything else to make him look like a serious senator.
10:27So from the very beginning, everything was done with that in mind.
10:32Obama and his team designed a detailed two-year plan.
10:36They put together a two-year plan to put him at the highest possible political peak
10:41going into the 2008 election cycle.
10:45The plan called for Obama to avoid controversial issues and slowly raise his profile.
10:52We took no out-of-state speaking engagements in the first nine months.
10:57Didn't do any Sunday shows.
10:59He didn't want to get out there and expose himself to being attacked for somebody who was more interested in getting headlines
11:05and really doing his homework.
11:06So he had bigger plans than that.
11:08But he was very aware of the importance of being a team player and not raising people's hackles.
11:16But it was a big challenge to fit into the rigid traditions of the United States Senate.
11:22That's the seniority system.
11:23He was the last person to ask a question on every committee hearing.
11:27So he would have to sit there for at least two hours before he could be heard.
11:31So there was no question that he was very much a freshman.
11:34No question at all.
11:35There was a story that one of his staffers told me.
11:40He goes in with Obama to the first meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee, which is Obama's big play.
11:48And Joe Biden is chairing the meeting.
11:50And it's a confirmation hearing for Condoleezza Rice.
11:54And it's kind of a stark moment.
11:56And midway through the meeting, Biden is just going on and on.
12:01And Obama scribbles, looking very serious, scribbles a little note on a piece of paper and passes it back to his aide.
12:07And the aide's very excited because this is the first communication from Senator Obama.
12:12And the note says, shoot me now.
12:14Shoot, period, me, period, now, period.
12:16The freshman senator was impatient.
12:20Aides say he had his eyes on a bigger prize.
12:23You're in a divided Senate.
12:26It's hard to get anything done.
12:27You came to the Senate to get things done and the excitement of getting things done and nothing's really happening.
12:33I'm sure he's thinking there should be more.
12:36I don't think he would have been a long-term senator.
12:39He's not on the path to be in the leadership to stay three, four terms.
12:42Those who knew Obama well say his ambitious streak was not new.
12:49For 20 years, he had been relentlessly and carefully working his way up, navigating treacherous political waters.
12:56He's someone that's long been involved in the nitty-gritty of this stuff.
13:00I don't think that's something that people always realize.
13:02I think the soaring rhetoric, the sort of icon-like image that Obama has attained in this country,
13:09sometimes blinds us to the fact that he wasn't born on stage in 2004,
13:14but he had to rise through the ranks of machine politics in Chicago to get where he is,
13:21and that's made him an incredibly effective politician.
13:28Chicago is the capital of black America.
13:31This is the city within a few miles of each other.
13:35I'm telling you what the facts are!
13:37Louis Farrakhan has his headquarters.
13:39The Honorable Elijah Muhammad took sharp disagreement with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
13:45Jesse Jackson has his headquarters.
13:48Our time has come!
13:50It's the city where Harold Washington was mayor.
13:54The whole nation is watching as Chicago has set a powerful limit.
13:57This guy who overcame great odds and a lot of racism to lead this city.
14:03People will be moving forward as well, including more kinds of people than any government in the history of Chicago.
14:10It's the capital of black America, and I think that's one of the things that drew Barack Obama to that city.
14:16In 1985, Obama moved to Chicago.
14:20He was 23.
14:22He'd grown up in Hawaii and Indonesia, went to college in California and New York,
14:27and now he was determined to put roots down,
14:30to try to be part of the African-American political struggle.
14:34But at night, lying in bed, I would let the slogans drift away,
14:38to be replaced with a series of images, romantic images, of a past I had never known.
14:45They were of the civil rights movement, mostly.
14:48They told me that I wasn't alone in my particular struggles.
14:52You read his books and you think,
14:55God, here's a guy who's wrestling with his own identity and his own place in the world.
14:59He is, throughout this, trying to figure himself out.
15:04That my father looked nothing like the people around me,
15:07that he was black as pitch,
15:09my mother white as milk,
15:11barely registered in my mind.
15:12He says in his autobiography that he realized that he had to teach himself to be a black man in America,
15:18that this was something he couldn't learn from his mother and his grandparents.
15:21I had nothing to escape from except my own inner doubt.
15:25I was more like the black students who'd grown up in the suburbs,
15:27kids whose parents had already paid the price of escape.
15:30Barack has had to deal with dueling identities all of his life,
15:34nurtured by a white family and identifying with that family.
15:41But at the same time, when he goes out, he's identified as something else.
15:45And he has had to make sense of that duality his entire life.
15:51Obama became a community organizer on Chicago's South Side.
15:56There wasn't much detail to the idea.
15:58I didn't know anyone making a living that way.
16:01When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did,
16:05I couldn't answer them directly.
16:07Instead, I'd pronounce on the need for change.
16:10Change won't come from the top, I would say.
16:12Change will come from a mobilized grassroots.
16:14We had put an ad on a number of newspapers for a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.
16:20And Barack sent me a resume.
16:23I'm looking for anybody who might be a good organizer,
16:26but I particularly need somebody who's African American.
16:28You know, one way to put it is Barack Obama's looking for an authentic African American experience.
16:34And Jerry Kellman, the Chicago organizer, is looking for an authentic African American.
16:39He was a skinny young man.
16:42In some of the communities he worked, there were a lot of single moms, single grandmothers.
16:46And they wanted to take him in and feed him and fatten him up.
16:50He was an eligible young man.
16:52They wanted to introduce him to their daughters and to their granddaughters.
16:56And he found a home, and he was very comfortable here.
16:58But he wasn't always welcome.
17:03He had to work with a lot of different church leaders
17:06who weren't necessarily receptive to this young guy who came from the Ivy League
17:14and did not have Chicago roots.
17:18You know, Chicago is a town that says,
17:21we don't want nobody that nobody sent.
17:25Well, Barack was somebody that nobody sent.
17:27Still, Obama did have a model for how to succeed putting coalitions together.
17:35The newly elected mayor, Harold Washington.
17:38Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Jews, Gentiles.
17:48Harold Washington was surely a phenomenon.
17:50Have joined hands to form a new democratic coalition.
17:54Harold Washington had to be mayor for all the people of Chicago
17:57and had to be perceived as somebody who was prepared to be mayor of all the people of Chicago
18:02and not just a mayor for the black community.
18:04What Washington was able to do was to put together these coalitions, African Americans, Latinos, and progressive whites.
18:13And he was able to pull that together and beat the machine.
18:15And that kind of coalition building was incredibly influential for Barack.
18:20Obama had a small measure of success as an organizer, but it had its limitations.
18:25After two and a half years, he realizes you just can't get very far at community organizing.
18:31It structurally was not going to change racial discrimination.
18:34It was not going to change poverty in the United States.
18:36There simply would not be enough power there.
18:38At that point, he begins thinking about, is there some other way to do the same job that I'm trying to do,
18:46which is lift people out of poverty.
18:49He decided he needed to sort of see how politics worked on a sort of higher level
18:55than what he had access to as a street organizer in Chicago.
19:02He needed to go off to law school.
19:03He took out student loans and was accepted at one of the nation's most prestigious law schools, Harvard.
19:18The political environment on the law school campus in the late 80s and early 90s was borderline toxic.
19:29Harvard Law School was a very divided institution.
19:33There's a lot of mutual animosity surrounding affirmative action.
19:39It's racially a very charged time.
19:44People just did a lot of talking and a lot of fighting.
19:47By the end, it's like one big unhappy family.
19:53Barack Obama found himself in the midst of the protests,
19:57at one point championing the cause of a black faculty member, Professor Derek Bell.
20:01And I remember him sauntering up to the front and not giving us a lecture, but engaging us in a conversation.
20:09He was a very public figure on campus.
20:12Everyone knew who he was.
20:14He's a very well-respected leader, probably the most well-respected student on campus.
20:19Simply by his good looks and easy charm.
20:21In the superheated racial disputes, Obama had become the middleman, a conciliator.
20:29He's always been very adept at walking this fine line between two dramatically different worlds,
20:36whether it be black and white, liberal and conservative.
20:39He's just extremely adroit at walking that tightrope.
20:43He was raised in a white family.
20:45He learned early on, I think, to move back and forth between different communities of people.
20:49The intellectual epicenter of the ideological battles tearing the law school apart was the prestigious Harvard Law Review.
20:57I don't remember any physical violence.
21:00I certainly remember plenty of raised voices.
21:03I've worked at the Supreme Court.
21:06I've worked at the White House.
21:07I've been in Washington now for almost 20 years.
21:10And the bitterest politics I've ever seen in terms of it getting personal and nasty was on the Harvard Law Review.
21:17Brad Berenson was a member of the Conservative Federalist Society.
21:22One day, he and his associates would help run the Bush administration.
21:27The conservatives on the Harvard Law School campus at that time were severely outnumbered.
21:34Inside that toxic environment, Obama's affinity for the Federalist students surprised his black associates.
21:42But I don't know why at the time he was able to communicate so well with them.
21:47Even spend social time with them, which was not something I would ever have done.
21:54I don't think he was agenda-driven.
21:57I think he genuinely thought some of these guys are nice.
22:00All of them are smart.
22:02Some of them are funny.
22:06All of them have something to say.
22:08No African-American had ever been president of the Law Review.
22:15In his second year, Obama decided to run for it.
22:19If being on the Law Review is a great credential and a high honor,
22:23being the president of it is the greatest credential and the greatest honor.
22:25The voting for the presidency was an all-day process in which it started out in the day with a lot of candidates.
22:33And they got basically voted off the island as the day progressed.
22:37One of my most poignant memories of the Law Review election process was late in the process.
22:42It's late at night.
22:43We're trying to figure out how to resolve this thing.
22:45And clearly, Barack has a lot of support, but it's not resolved yet.
22:50And a conservative editor, who probably disagreed with just about everything that Barack stood for,
22:57got up and said that he was firmly behind Barack.
23:00Because we were a divided institution, this was the best person to lead the institution
23:05and to reach out to all constituencies,
23:08even though he had his own political views and made them known.
23:11Just after midnight, he won.
23:15It was national news.
23:17Though I'm honored, and I think people can say that my election symbolizes some progress,
23:24at least within the small confines of the legal community,
23:27I think it's real important to keep the focus on the broader world out there
23:31and see that for a lot of kids, the doors that have been opened to me aren't open to them.
23:39The African-American editors were ecstatic.
23:43I think a lot of the minority editors on the Review expected him to use his discretion
23:48to the maximum extent possible to empower them.
23:53Well, there was an expectation on the part of his more progressive colleagues at the Law Review
23:58that he would side with them on issues.
24:01Barack was reluctant to do that.
24:03It's not that he was out of sympathy with their views,
24:06but his first and foremost goal, it always seemed to me,
24:09was to put out a first-rate publication,
24:12and he was not going to let politics or ideology get in the way of doing that.
24:18Only one African-American student received a top editor's job.
24:22Federalist Society members were given three.
24:26The whole Federalist slate was taken over.
24:29I was kind of hoping to get a masthead position,
24:31and I did not get a masthead position.
24:34I was hurt.
24:36I think I was, I would call it very hurt.
24:39And I told him so.
24:40I mean, certainly he was aware of how I felt.
24:43I think Barack took ten times as much grief
24:47from those on the left on the Review
24:50as from those of us on the right.
24:52And the reason was, I think there was an expectation
24:55among those editors on the left
24:57that he would affirmatively use his position
25:01to advance the cause.
25:04As law school ended,
25:06Obama told his classmates he had decided to return to Chicago.
25:11In my mind, there's no doubt he would have ended up
25:13with a Supreme Court clerkship,
25:15but he turned his back on that
25:16and saw himself running separate from the PAC
25:20even back then.
25:22Obama returned to Chicago to teach law,
25:30make connections with the city's progressive power brokers,
25:33and learned the rough and tumble of elective politics.
25:37His first opportunity came
25:39when an older, experienced state senator, Alice Palmer,
25:43in effect offered him her state Senate seat.
25:47Alice Palmer had decided she was going to run
25:48for a congressional seat that had suddenly become open.
25:50She gets crushed by Jesse Jackson Jr.
25:54Came back to Barack with the hope and expectation
25:58that he would drop out in deference to her.
26:00He declined to do so.
26:01A delegation on behalf of Alice Palmer,
26:04including some very august figures
26:07from the south side of Chicago,
26:08came to him and asked him to step out of the way
26:11and let her get, you know, run again for her seat.
26:15So here's Barack Obama.
26:17He's not from Chicago.
26:18He's desperately trying to break into politics.
26:21And he's being approached
26:22by some of the elder African-American leaders
26:26of the community,
26:27people who have been around a whole lot longer than he has.
26:31People telling him,
26:32your time will come.
26:33Just back down.
26:34Just cede this seat to Alice.
26:36She's the only reason you're in this race anyway.
26:38You owe her.
26:40Barack wasn't thrilled about it.
26:42I've gone out and raised money,
26:44opened up an office,
26:45recruited people,
26:46put my name out there,
26:47and I'm supposed to take that back
26:50because you now want to change
26:51the agreement we already had.
26:52That just doesn't make a lot of sense.
26:55His behavior was political in Chicago style.
26:58He did what Chicago politicians do.
27:01We challenged her petitions.
27:04Obama played hardball.
27:07He had the signatures
27:08on Palmer's hastily assembled election petitions
27:10compared to the actual voter registry.
27:14So I went down to his office
27:15and looked at petitions
27:16and late into the night
27:18checked them against the key book
27:20and did what I had to do.
27:22And while they were at it,
27:24Obama checked his other opponents too.
27:26Not just Alice Palmer,
27:28but all of Obama's opponents
27:29are knocked off the ballot
27:31and Obama wins his first election
27:33without an opponent.
27:36It's a pretty good way to win.
27:41Some of his sort of idealistic message of hope
27:45has confused people
27:46to a sort of inner toughness,
27:49you know,
27:50the velvet glove around the steel fist.
27:52In 2000,
27:55Obama set his sights on a congressional seat.
27:59But not just any congressional seat.
28:02This one was held by yet another
28:03older, highly regarded figure
28:05in the black community,
28:07Congressman Bobby Rush.
28:09In retrospect,
28:10many people around him say,
28:12it was a terrible idea from the get-go.
28:14I told him that he shouldn't do it
28:16and he went ahead and did it anyway.
28:18So it's revealing
28:19of his extraordinary confidence
28:22that he would take on Bobby Rush
28:24and think he had a chance.
28:26Bobby Rush has real strong roots
28:28in the community.
28:30Bobby Rush was, you know,
28:31a panther.
28:33His friend Fred Hampton
28:35and Mark Clark were killed.
28:37Bobby would have been killed.
28:38He was not there that night.
28:39But he emerged out of that fight,
28:41out of that season
28:42as a kind of tough street guy.
28:45And then he matured
28:47as a congressman
28:48into a guy
28:49that took that toughness
28:50and broadly applied that.
28:52Survivor Rush
28:53had very real strength
28:54in the community.
28:56What has he done?
28:57I mean, let me tell you.
28:59To compete with Rush,
29:00Obama tried to reach
29:01a new generation of voters
29:03in the predominantly black district.
29:05The first congressional district
29:05is who can best articulate
29:07and frame the issues
29:08that are most important
29:09to voters in the district.
29:11It was very much
29:12this theme of unity.
29:13We can all get along
29:14with one another.
29:15We should help
29:15the most vulnerable
29:17in our society.
29:18We need to rebuild
29:19our communities
29:20from the ground up.
29:22I think what Barack's strategy is
29:24is to emphasize
29:25the common challenges
29:27that black and white Americans face.
29:29I know that you're a wise man
29:31and you seem very astute
29:32on the issues.
29:33But in Bobby Rush's district,
29:35they publicly question
29:36whether Obama
29:37had enough experience
29:38and privately wondered
29:40whether he was black enough.
29:41African-American ministers
29:42have endorsed me
29:43based on my record.
29:45How dedicated is he
29:46to the black struggle?
29:47He was fighting off these
29:49is he black enough charges.
29:51There's always been
29:52a subtext
29:53of the opposition to him
29:54from other black politicians.
29:57They looked at him
29:58with a little apprehension.
30:00All of these things
30:01come back
30:02in the Bobby Rush campaign
30:03and they come back
30:04in a very nasty way.
30:05The charges of elitism
30:08is this Harvard guy
30:10with well-modulated eloquence.
30:12What does he know
30:13about the black struggle?
30:15There's a long article
30:15about the race
30:16in the Chicago Reader,
30:17the local alternative paper
30:18in Chicago,
30:20where one of Obama's opponents,
30:22he says Obama is viewed
30:23as the white man
30:25in blackface
30:26in our community.
30:27It got bad.
30:29It was real bad.
30:30A number of black nationalists
30:32and other observers
30:33in the African-American community
30:34made all sorts of allegations
30:37about Barack being a tool
30:38of Hyde Park
30:40and the University of Chicago,
30:42which are both code words
30:43for both whites and Jews.
30:45It wouldn't be the first time
30:47that someone had called him
30:48not black enough.
30:49I think what was probably
30:52surprising for him
30:53was how much traction it got
30:55and how effective it was
30:57against him
30:58in that particular circumstance.
31:00He believed he'd already
31:01put down roots
31:02in Chicago's black community.
31:05He lived in the district,
31:06worked on civil rights cases,
31:08and perhaps most importantly,
31:11he'd fallen in love with
31:12and married a woman
31:13from the neighborhood,
31:14Michelle Robinson.
31:16Her roots in Chicago
31:17was deeper than his roots
31:18in Chicago.
31:19She comes from a middle-class
31:21working family
31:23with working family values
31:26and strong church values.
31:29She went to public school
31:32and she and my daughter
31:33were classmates.
31:34They were friends.
31:36And so she has roots there.
31:39And so she would know people
31:41he did not know
31:41and know places he would not know.
31:45That alliance
31:46gave him a kind of rootedness
31:49in that community
31:50that he really didn't have
31:51because of the kind of
31:52relative rootlessness
31:53of his childhood and upbringing.
31:56For someone like me
31:57who had barely known his father,
31:59who had spent much of his life
32:00traveling from place to place,
32:02his bloodline scattered
32:03to the four winds.
32:05The home that Frazier
32:06and Marian Robinson
32:07had built for themselves
32:08stirred a longing for stability,
32:11a sense of place
32:12that I had not realized was there.
32:14It was a very important
32:19personal connection.
32:21In Michelle,
32:22he found a partner
32:23who was able
32:25to ground him personally.
32:27The fact that she was so rooted
32:30in the community
32:31had obvious value.
32:34But, you know,
32:35it was very personal.
32:36There was,
32:40inside Black Chicago,
32:42another place
32:43Barack Obama
32:44wanted to put down roots,
32:45the church.
32:49Obama was very meticulous
32:51about going to the various pastors,
32:53interviewing them,
32:54talking to them
32:55about their churches
32:56and their reputations.
32:58So he was on a sort of quest
33:01to find a church home.
33:03Obama settled
33:05on Trinity Church.
33:07It's a big,
33:08popular inner-city church
33:09that was known
33:11for its community work.
33:14Probably gathers
33:15the most members
33:16of Chicago's black elite.
33:19Trinity was led
33:20by Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
33:25Reverend Wright
33:26is a very profound preacher.
33:28Very scholarly.
33:29Very popular
33:30in the church circles.
33:32Apartheid is wrong.
33:34Oppression is wrong.
33:36Anybody who feels
33:37white skin
33:38is superior to black skin.
33:40He had the reputation
33:42of a militant guy
33:43who could,
33:44he provided kind of
33:45a vicarious militance
33:48for us
33:50of Chicago's
33:50black elite.
33:53So they can get
33:54a dose of militance
33:55on Sunday
33:56and go back home
33:57and feel pretty good
33:58about doing their part
33:59for the black movement.
34:00So membership
34:03in Trinity
34:04might have been good
34:05for Obama
34:05personally
34:06and even politically.
34:09But it didn't help
34:10on election day
34:11against Bobby Rush.
34:13The last week
34:14of the campaign,
34:15Bill Clinton
34:15did radio spots
34:17for him
34:17on black radio.
34:18I'm President Clinton
34:19urging you
34:20to send Bobby Rush
34:20back to Congress
34:21where he can continue
34:22his fight
34:23to prepare our children
34:24for the 21st century.
34:25It was hopeless.
34:26and America
34:26need Bobby Rush
34:27in Congress.
34:28Well, we lost badly
34:29two to one.
34:30I was the deputy
34:30campaign manager
34:31and the field director
34:32in that race
34:32and we lost badly.
34:33It was the first time
34:34in his life
34:35where people didn't
34:36just really accept him
34:38immediately,
34:40where things didn't
34:40really go perfectly
34:42for him.
34:43The Bobby Rush defeat
34:45helped him understand
34:47that his natural
34:48constituency
34:49were not these
34:50working class
34:51African Americans
34:52with nationalist
34:53aspirations
34:54but rather
34:55with progressive
34:55whites,
34:57progressive African Americans,
34:58those who had
34:59a wider view
35:01of what politics
35:04was all about.
35:05It would take
35:06four years
35:07for Obama
35:07to put together
35:08a coalition like that.
35:10The state senator
35:11had decided
35:12to try to become
35:13the United States senator.
35:16Obama was a little bit
35:17too much of a lone wolf
35:18in the 2000 campaign,
35:20didn't have enough support,
35:21had sort of
35:22gotten into the race
35:23without thinking it through,
35:25which is uncharacteristic
35:27for Obama.
35:29And as he plotted
35:31his next political campaign,
35:32he avoided all the mistakes
35:33of that 2000 race.
35:36If there's a child
35:38on the south side
35:39of Chicago
35:39that can't read,
35:42that makes a difference
35:43in my life
35:43even if it's not my child.
35:45This is the time
35:46he signed up
35:46David Axelrod.
35:47There's an Arab-American
35:49somewhere getting rounded up
35:50without benefit
35:51of an attorney.
35:52Or through process.
35:53That threatens
35:53my civil liberties
35:54even if I'm not
35:56an immigrant.
35:57He had a political story
35:58to tell
35:59and Axelrod knew
35:59how to pick out
36:00the various aspects
36:01of that story
36:02and really sell them
36:04to voters.
36:07I worked on
36:07the south side
36:08of Chicago
36:09with a group
36:11of churches
36:11that had come together
36:12to try to...
36:12His community
36:13organizing days
36:14went over
36:14extraordinarily well
36:16with blacks.
36:17His time at Harvard...
36:18led the Harvard Law Review
36:19until I changed that.
36:20Suddenly whites are like,
36:21oh, okay,
36:22they're very accepting
36:23of him.
36:23I'm Barack Obama.
36:24I'm running
36:25for the United States Senate
36:26and I approve this message
36:27to say,
36:28yes, we can.
36:29That television campaign
36:30really sold
36:31voters on
36:33the story
36:34of Barack Obama.
36:37Yes, we can!
36:39Thank you, Illinois.
36:39I love you!
36:40And so,
36:41just four years
36:42after his loss
36:42to Bobby Rush,
36:44Obama put together
36:45that special coalition
36:46and a victory.
36:48At the victory party
36:49for his election,
36:51it looked like
36:52a replay
36:53of Harold Washington's
36:55mayoral victory party.
36:56It really did.
36:57I mean,
36:57there were black people there
36:58who were ecstatic
37:00about the rise
37:01of this young brother
37:02and a range
37:04of white supporters,
37:06primarily these progressives
37:08who supported
37:09Harold Washington.
37:10It was extraordinary,
37:11really,
37:11the way that
37:13the crowds
37:14echoed each other.
37:20When he first
37:21joined the U.S. Senate,
37:23Obama and his team
37:24had created
37:24that two-year plan
37:26and during the first year
37:27he had kept
37:28a low profile.
37:30But in the second year,
37:31they began to raise
37:32Obama's visibility.
37:34In 2006,
37:35he had a different strategy
37:37in the second year
37:38and that was to be helpful
37:39to other Democrats.
37:41The senator from Illinois
37:43had national ambitions.
37:45This was part of the plan
37:46was to go out
37:48and, I guess,
37:50crassly say,
37:50build IOUs.
37:52And how better
37:52to sort of get the support
37:54from people in the Senate
37:56than to help them.
37:57It is a battle
37:59about education,
38:00it is a battle
38:01about health care,
38:02it is a battle
38:02about energy.
38:03And he would use
38:04the speaking engagements
38:05as an opportunity
38:06to hone his political message.
38:09This is the wrong war
38:10at the wrong time.
38:12Every child
38:12is my child.
38:14Every senior citizen
38:15deserves protection.
38:16The government
38:17can help.
38:18The government
38:18can make a difference
38:19in all of our lives.
38:21Everywhere he went,
38:22crowds were huge
38:23and enthusiastic,
38:24record crowds
38:25at all these
38:26fundraising events.
38:28That summer,
38:29the Obama team
38:30ramped up his visibility
38:31even more.
38:37They took him back
38:38to his father's roots,
38:40to Africa.
38:42He'd visited
38:43in his mid-twenties
38:44after his father's death.
38:46But this time,
38:47Barack Obama
38:48was a potential
38:49presidential candidate.
38:50There were two
38:52documentary crews
38:53that went with us,
38:54one of which was
38:55funded for the campaign.
38:59There were probably
39:0022, 23 reporters there.
39:08Most of this trip
39:09was official business.
39:10And the significance
39:11of that was
39:13that he could have
39:13meetings with
39:14heads of state
39:15and things.
39:15So they were very much
39:17crafting his image
39:19as a world leader.
39:22The historic character
39:23of the trip
39:24was self-conscious.
39:26I mean,
39:26they knew what
39:27they were doing.
39:29You don't send
39:30a documentary crew
39:31to film you
39:32going on a vacation
39:33with your family.
39:34But the centerpiece
39:47of the trip
39:48was his visit
39:49to Kenya,
39:50his father's
39:51home country.
39:52He arrived here
39:53and there were
39:55thousands,
39:56if not tens
39:57of thousands
39:57of people
39:58sort of
39:59who were there
40:00ready to greet him.
40:01And it was something
40:02like I've never
40:03seen before.
40:03You see him
40:06at moments
40:07become sort of
40:08overcome.
40:09And so I think
40:10for him
40:10it was stirring.
40:14It was sort of
40:16a surreal setting.
40:17People were running
40:18after his motorcade.
40:23It was like
40:27this favorite son
40:28had come home,
40:29but many people
40:30viewed him
40:30as the president,
40:32as this American leader.
40:33People thought
40:34he was like
40:35the leading politician
40:36in America.
40:37And that was
40:37sort of a moment
40:39for me
40:40where I sort of
40:40thought,
40:41you know,
40:41oh, I can't imagine
40:43he doesn't run
40:44at this point.
40:46Unfortunately,
40:46I've got to go back home,
40:47but I want to say
40:48to everybody,
40:49thank you,
40:50I appreciate you,
40:51and I look forward
40:52to coming back soon.
40:53Okay,
40:53I'll send this out.
40:54coming back,
40:56please move.
41:04Back in Washington,
41:06many of Obama's
41:07advisers thought
41:08he should run
41:09for the presidency,
41:10but they say
41:11the candidate
41:11was less certain.
41:14I think Obama
41:15had a lot of questions
41:16and a lot of skepticism
41:17about it
41:18and wanted to approach
41:20the whole process
41:21in a methodical way.
41:24Obama often relied
41:25on the advice
41:26of political wise men.
41:28One of them
41:28was former
41:29Democratic leader
41:30Tom Daschle.
41:31We went to
41:32my favorite restaurant
41:33and took the kitchen table
41:35in the back
41:37where nobody could see us.
41:39Well,
41:39I tell him
41:39he should do it
41:40and that he shouldn't assume
41:41if he passes up
41:43this window
41:43that there will be another.
41:45because the longer
41:46he's in Washington,
41:47the more history he has.
41:49And the more history he has,
41:51the more he's going
41:52to be explaining
41:53his votes
41:53and his actions
41:54and his statements
41:55and his positions
41:57that undermine
41:59his message.
42:01Then Obama gathered
42:02his closest friends
42:04and advisers.
42:06He asked us
42:06to challenge him
42:07on what he would face
42:10in running for president,
42:11to really ask
42:12the tough questions.
42:14And some of the most
42:15skeptical people
42:16about making this race
42:17were some of his
42:17very accomplished,
42:19successful African-American
42:20friends.
42:22And I remember
42:22one person saying
42:24that, you know,
42:25I just don't think
42:26America's ready,
42:28you know,
42:28to elect an African-American.
42:30And I remember
42:30Barack's immediate reaction
42:31was,
42:31I don't agree with that
42:32and I think
42:34they are ready.
42:35But if they're not,
42:37they're not going
42:38to be ready
42:38in my lifetime.
42:39So I'm going
42:40to challenge
42:40that assumption.
42:42Obama spent
42:43the fall of 2006
42:44carefully considering
42:45the advice
42:46and warnings.
42:48Then it was time
42:49to make the decision.
42:51He went off to Hawaii
42:52at the end of 2006
42:54with his family,
42:55thought hard about it,
42:56and came back
42:57and said,
42:57I think I want
42:58to do this.
43:02He wanted
43:03his presidential announcement
43:04to be an historic moment,
43:06something meaningful.
43:07It was 16 degrees
43:11on the cold February day
43:13when Barack Obama
43:14declared his candidacy.
43:16Obama's scheduled
43:17to deliver this big event
43:19in Springfield
43:20and that it was going
43:21to be in Springfield,
43:22home of Abe Lincoln.
43:24It's like a very big deal
43:25for the campaign.
43:27Praise and honor to God
43:28for bringing us together
43:29here today.
43:29They had even invited
43:30his minister
43:31from Trinity Church,
43:33the Reverend Jeremiah Wright,
43:34to deliver the invocation.
43:35But there was a problem.
43:39A story in Rolling Stone
43:40quoted some of the pastor's
43:43fiery sermons.
43:44Racism is how this country
43:45was founded
43:46and how this country
43:47is still run.
43:48His advisors knew
43:49that Wright was a big problem,
43:51that if people went back
43:52and mind what he had said,
43:53if they looked at Obama
43:55and looked at Wright
43:56in their relationship,
43:57that it could change
43:57the impression
43:58that people had of Obama.
44:00What Axelrod told me later
44:01is that the campaign
44:04became worried
44:05that Fox News
44:07would blast
44:08these quotes
44:09from Obama's crazy pastor.
44:11So they yanked Wright.
44:13They basically told him
44:14that he couldn't
44:14be part of this event.
44:16And Wright got very mad.
44:17I stand before you today
44:19to announce
44:20my candidacy
44:21for President
44:23of the United States
44:25of America.
44:26on that cold,
44:27cold morning,
44:29not to have
44:30Reverend Wright
44:31give the invocation
44:31was certainly a sign
44:33that they knew
44:33there was some problem brewing.
44:35I think the question was
44:37how big a problem was it?
44:38How could they deal with it
44:39if it erupted?
44:40And could they just kind of
44:41keep it in the back?
44:43Thank you very much,
44:44everybody.
44:44Let's get to work.
44:45I love you.
44:51Super Tuesday is over.
44:53The presidential
44:54nominated contests
44:55are not...
44:55For months,
44:56Barack Obama
44:57and Hillary Clinton
44:58would battle
44:58in one primary state
45:00after another.
45:00The waters are as muddy
45:02as ever...
45:02Eventually,
45:03as the race drew closer...
45:04...to sustain the struggle...
45:05A controversy erupted
45:07that threatened
45:07Obama's candidacy,
45:09those sermons
45:10by Reverend Wright.
45:12God damn America
45:13that's in the Bible
45:15for killing innocent people!
45:17God damn America
45:18for treating us citizens
45:20as less than humans!
45:22The government
45:22gives them the drugs...
45:24He saw them on television.
45:25We're told that
45:26he was jarred by it.
45:27He knew it was a problem.
45:29David Plouffe
45:30and Obama's campaign manager
45:32said that was the episode
45:33that could have destroyed
45:35our campaign.
45:35He called it
45:36a direct torpedo
45:37to the hull.
45:38So inside,
45:39they were absolutely terrified
45:41that it all could have ended
45:42with Wright.
45:43It was that big a deal
45:44at the time.
45:45Wright was perfect fodder
45:46for cable,
45:47for talk radio,
45:47for the Internet
45:48to allow any message
45:50Obama wanted to put forward
45:51to be completely overwhelmed.
45:53Wright became
45:54the Obama story.
45:56I am sick of Negroes
45:59who just do not get it!
46:01The pressure on Obama
46:02to do something
46:03was enormous.
46:05His hand is forced
46:06to finally
46:07really tackle this issue,
46:10ironically,
46:11so that he's not perceived
46:12as an angry black politician
46:15in association
46:15with the rhetoric
46:18of Reverend Wright
46:20would suggest.
46:23It would be left to Obama
46:24to figure out
46:25how to handle it.
46:26After a few days,
46:28he decided.
46:29He said,
46:30I want to do a speech
46:31on race.
46:32I want to put this
46:32in context.
46:34And he said,
46:35I want to do it
46:36on Monday or Tuesday.
46:37He said,
46:37but I have to be,
46:39I have to write it.
46:40Today,
46:41Obama promises
46:42to tackle the issue
46:43of race head-on
46:43in Pennsylvania.
46:44Race is now
46:45officially on the table.
46:46He must get beyond
46:47this race debate.
46:48And soon,
46:49his campaign is calling
46:50this speech
46:50an important moment.
46:51Major address
46:51on race,
46:52politics,
46:53and unifying our country.
46:54what may be
46:55the most important
46:55speech of his campaign.
46:57Obama chose
46:58the Constitution Center
46:59in Philadelphia
47:00for the speech.
47:02Thank you so much.
47:05I believe deeply
47:07that we cannot solve
47:08the challenges
47:09of our time
47:09unless we solve
47:10them together.
47:12Understanding
47:13that we may have
47:14different stories,
47:14but we hold
47:15common hopes.
47:16I mean,
47:16this is a moment
47:17of, you know,
47:17sort of maximum peril
47:18for a candidate.
47:20And his goal
47:20was to elevate
47:21out of that moment
47:22into something broader.
47:24You've heard the
47:24implication that
47:25my candidacy
47:26is somehow
47:27an exercise
47:27in affirmative action.
47:29Jeremiah Wright,
47:30God bless him,
47:31allowed Barack Obama
47:32to confront
47:33this issue
47:34sooner rather
47:36than later.
47:37And I think
47:38it allowed him
47:39to regain
47:40the upper hand.
47:41I can no more
47:42disown him
47:43than I can disown
47:45the black community.
47:47I can no more
47:48disown him
47:48than I can disown
47:49my white grandmother,
47:51a woman who helped
47:52raise me,
47:53a woman who sacrificed
47:54again and again
47:55for me,
47:56a woman who loves me
47:57as much as she loves
47:59anything in this world,
48:00but a woman
48:01who once confessed
48:02her fear of black men
48:04who passed her by
48:05on the street,
48:07and who on more
48:08than one occasion
48:09has uttered racial
48:10or ethnic stereotypes
48:11that made me cringe.
48:15These people
48:16are part of me,
48:17and they are part
48:19of America,
48:20this country
48:21that I love.
48:25This was not
48:26your usual
48:26Barack Obama event.
48:28It was a political necessity.
48:29It was a nuanced
48:30take on race relations
48:32in this country.
48:33I give Senator Obama
48:34a lot of credit.
48:34Barack Obama
48:35gave the most expansive
48:36and most intensely
48:37personal experience
48:38that will likely be talked
48:39about for the rest
48:40of this campaign.
48:41Eventually,
48:42the Reverend Wright
48:42controversy receded,
48:45and the battle
48:46with Hillary Clinton
48:47ended in June.
48:48I pledge my support
48:50to the next president
48:52of the United States,
48:53Barack Obama.
48:55Against long odds,
48:57Obama had secured
48:58the Democratic nomination.
49:00I accept your nomination
49:02for presidency
49:04of the United States.
49:05I think what people
49:06saw in him
49:07was a groundedness.
49:09This is not a politician
49:11who is given
49:12to great highs
49:13or great lows.
49:15There's a steadiness
49:16to him
49:16that I think
49:17people saw
49:18and grew more comfortable
49:19with through the course
49:20of the campaign.
49:22In the general election,
49:24Obama confronted
49:25the highly experienced
49:26Republican senator
49:27I've been called a maverick.
49:28John McCain.
49:29I don't work for a party.
49:30So, for a guy like Obama
49:32to run with virtually
49:33no experience
49:3420 years ago
49:34would have been
49:35highly, highly unlikely.
49:37You know,
49:37perhaps impossible.
49:39It's very rare moments
49:40in history
49:41when somebody
49:41with that level
49:42of experience
49:43can expect to get
49:43a serious hearing
49:44for the nation's
49:45highest office.
49:47For a few weeks,
49:48the race was neck and neck.
49:50Voters seemed uncertain
49:51about whether Obama
49:52had enough experience.
49:53Obama and McCain
49:54are in a dead heat.
49:55Neck and neck.
49:56Can Senator Obama
49:57regain the upper hand?
49:58Then, a crisis emerged.
50:00Tomorrow morning,
50:01I'll suspend my campaign
50:02and return to Washington.
50:04The American economy crashed.
50:06When the financial crisis
50:08hit,
50:09the American people
50:10had a good chance
50:11to see two potential presidents
50:13deal with a crisis.
50:16In a very strange sense,
50:17Obama became the conservative
50:19at that moment,
50:20at least when you think
50:21temperamentally.
50:22Our economy
50:23is strongest
50:24as one nation.
50:25That was the moment
50:26where he just looked
50:27steady and calm
50:29and normal
50:29and McCain didn't.
50:31In the final weeks,
50:33pollsters said
50:33voters had come
50:34to believe
50:35Obama was
50:36plausibly presidential.
50:37Barack Obama
50:44is projected to be
50:45the next president.
50:46Senator Barack Obama
50:47of Illinois
50:48will be the next president.
50:49Barack Obama
50:50will be
50:51the 44th president
50:52of the United States.
50:54The next
50:55first family
50:56of the United States
50:57of America.
50:58That night
51:05when he came out,
51:05the look on his face
51:06to me
51:07looked like someone
51:08who finally understood
51:09the weight of the job
51:11that he had just won.
51:17If there is anyone
51:19out there
51:20who still doubts
51:22that America
51:23is a place
51:24where all things
51:25are possible,
51:26who still wonders
51:29if the dream
51:30of our founders
51:31is alive
51:32in our time,
51:34who still questions
51:35the power
51:36of our democracy,
51:39tonight
51:39is your answer.
51:45It was almost
51:46as if
51:46the weight
51:47of the world
51:48had rested
51:48on his shoulders
51:49and at that point
51:50he wanted to say,
51:52okay,
51:52I get it,
51:54I'm trying
51:54to digest it,
51:55I'm trying
51:55to absorb it.
51:56This is our moment.
51:58This is our time
51:59to restore prosperity
52:01and promote
52:02the cause of peace,
52:03to reclaim
52:04the American dream
52:05and reaffirm
52:06that fundamental truth
52:08that out of many
52:09we are one.
52:12You still have people
52:14who never thought
52:15that they would see
52:15something like this
52:16in their lifetime.
52:18You talk to
52:19African-American voters,
52:20you know,
52:20they never thought
52:21that they would see
52:22an African-American
52:22who was a serious
52:23contender
52:24for the presidency
52:24of the United States.
52:26Never thought
52:27in their lifetime
52:27that they would see it.
52:28Before I met
52:29Barack Obama,
52:30I never thought
52:30I would see it
52:31in my lifetime.
52:35While we breathe,
52:37we hope,
52:38and those who tell us
52:39that we can't,
52:40we will respond
52:41with that timeless
52:42creed that sums up
52:43the spirit of a people.
52:46Yes, we can.
52:48God bless you.
52:49And may God bless
52:51the United States
52:51of America.
52:55You have to go back
52:57in history
52:57a long, long time
52:58to think of a president
53:00who comes into office
53:01with as much trouble
53:03to deal with
53:04as Barack Obama.
53:06A war in Iraq,
53:08a war in Afghanistan,
53:09and the worst economic crisis
53:11we've had
53:11since the Great Depression.
53:13That is a huge,
53:14huge set of problems
53:16to deal with.
53:18And, you know,
53:20no matter whatever
53:21the euphoria
53:21of becoming
53:22the first African-American
53:24to be elected,
53:26Barack Obama
53:26is a pretty serious guy
53:28about knowing
53:28what the next steps
53:29look like.
53:30And you could see
53:31some of that in him
53:32on election night
53:33in Grant Park.
53:34The End
53:51Explore more
53:53on our website
53:54where you can watch
53:55the program again online.
53:57Whether it be
53:57black and white,
53:58liberal and conservative,
54:00he's extremely adroit
54:01walking that tightrope.
54:02Explore Frontline's
54:04interviews with
54:05insiders and observers
54:06who've tracked Obama
54:07over the years.
54:08He has had to make sense
54:10of that duality
54:11his entire life.
54:13Read more about
54:14his character and temperament,
54:16his ambition
54:17and meteoric rise.
54:18To announce
54:19my candidacy
54:20for president
54:22of the United States
54:23of America.
54:24And how he won
54:25this historic election.
54:27And then join the discussion
54:29at PBS.org.
54:32News of America
54:35in 90 speaking
54:35ofterrorist
54:37through 2010
54:38Obi Banner
54:40and David
54:41from signals
54:43to the news
54:43of students
54:44in the Wind
54:45and Adam
54:46of the United States
54:47and host
54:47members
54:48andff
54:48accucar
54:49and
55:00in the
56:02With additional funding from the Park Foundation.
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