In deciphering Obama’s references to, and descriptions of, black history, it is also important to pay attention not only to what he said, but when, during his eight years as president, he said it. For example, he tended to be more outspoken during his second term. Obama’s vision of African American history has been relatively consistent in its malleability. Further, in his mind, black history has always been American history.
“Now, we gather to celebrate Black History Month, and from our earliest days, black history has been American history,” Obama opened his remarks at a White House Black History Month reception in 2016. He insisted that black history should not be detached from “our collective American history” (another term for normative US history that prioritizes white America) or “just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits” or a “commemoration of past events.”15 He also believes that black history can teach people about the value of balancing themes of victimization and perseverance. In his remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the National Museum of African History and Culture in Washington, DC, Obama announced: “I want my daughters to see the shackles that bound slaves on their voyage across the ocean and the shards of glass that flew from the 16th Street Baptist church.” At the same time, he added, he wanted “them to appreciate this museum not just as a record of tragedy, but as a celebration of life.”16
Clearly Obama and those in his camp were not wet behind the ears. They were cognizant of the racial maneuverings and power struggles that permeate American politics. An African American male seeking to become President of the United States could not focus on, draw excessive attention to, or critically unpack black America’s past or present conditions when speaking directly to white audiences. Obama almost never discussed African Americans’ historical or contemporary realities in his widely televised State of the Union Addresses and when he did, he was tactful and evasive. “We may have different takes on the events of Ferguson and New York. But surely we can understand a father who fears his son can’t walk home without being harassed,” Obama declared in his 2015 State of the Union Address, “And surely we can understand the wife who won’t rest until the police officer she married walks through the front door at the end of his shift.”17
The ways in which Obama talked about black history broadened over time. This is epitomized by the evolution of his National African American History Month proclamations considered in the next chapter, his routine speeches to the NAACP, and an assortment of unceremonious exchanges. Over time, he became increasingly forthright. When asked in 2008 if his daughters should benefit from affirmative action measures, Obama shrewdly responded that they should not be afforded “preferential” treatment. In the same year, he also did not endorse reparations. Yet, in an interview with the New Yorker in his last year as president, he opined that “racial preferences” should be applied in colleges and universities. Deciphering and untangling Obama’s views of black history is a challenging endeavor.
This task is not made any easier by the fact that Obama delivered thousands of speeches and remarks on the eve of, and during, his presidency. Frederick C. Harris has reasonably cautioned and criticized those who have attempted to pry too deeply into Obama’s mind, “the armchair psychologizing of Obama that too often passes for serious political analysis” as he puts it. “Trying to dig into the inner thoughts of the president’s view on race is at best left to presidential historians who, as time passes, will have the benefit of primary sources and the distance of time to reflect on Obama’s views,” Harris argues.18
Nevertheless, in order to unravel and appreciate Obama’s varied renditions of black history, I argue that it is crucial to excavate his inner thoughts and strategies by closely reading his speeches and placing them within their proper contexts, paying special attention to his particular audience, actual and intended. In this sense, I engage in African American intellectual history, a subspecialty of black history that in some measure seeks to get into the minds and decipher the ideas of historical characters.
Though labeling Obama a “black leader” in the conventional sense is misleading, he can be considered among and compared with the pantheon of lionized African American icons. The similarities between Booker T. Washington (arguably the most powerful black leader during the Progressive Era) and Obama are remarkably appreciable.
OF MR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND OBAMA
In one of the two most famous and enduring essays in The Souls of Black Folk, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” Du Bois broke his silence and publically lashed out against Washington for asking African Americans to renounce political power, civil rights, and “higher” (liberal arts) education. He also grouped Washington with an earlier tradition of black leadership that championed a similar approach of “conciliation” and “submission.”19
Following in the footsteps of the “father of the black intelligentsia,” writers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have drawn parallels between Washington and successive generations of so-called “conservative” black leaders and (in the case of Adolph Reed Jr.) popular black public intellectuals of the 1990s. Such comparisons of black spokespersons from distinctly different historical epochs are now fairly commonplace. Cross-generational juxtapositions can be wrought by oversimplifications, sometimes leading students of history to give in to historic recurrence (“history repeats itself”). Still, such imaginative exercises speak to the ubiquitous nature of race in American culture, the enduring nature of America’s consistent mistreatment of black people, and the lingering core and soul of particular strategies for combatting the oppression of black people.
Many scholars have compared Obama with Martin Luther King Jr. and other towering African American historical icons. For instance, Jelani Cobb has likened parts of Obama’s 1995 autobiography to Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk and has pointed out the “historical, personal, and political” connections between Obama and Jesse Jackson. Similarly, Peniel Joseph has identified “striking biographical and political parallels” between Malcolm X and Obama. More than a few emcees have grouped Obama with civil rights icons like Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and King. In his classic track “My President,” Jeezy keenly associated Booker T. Washington, his “homie,” with Obama as members of the black first club. Perhaps Obama would not have been opposed to The Snowman’s observations.
Obama’s highest praise was reserved for John Lewis and King, but he did brand Washington “the leader of a growing civil rights movement,” extolling his discipline, commitment to education as a compulsory passageway to social mobility, and work ethic. “Booker T. Washington ran a tight ship,” he told the 2011 graduates of Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, Tennessee. Playing historian, Obama created a humorous yet lucid and relatable anecdote about the iconic Washington:
He’d ride the train to Tuskegee and scare some of the new students. This is before YouTube and TMZ, so the kids didn’t recognize him. He’d walk up to them and say, “Oh, you’re heading to Tuskegee. I heard the work there is hard. I heard they give the students too much to do. I hear the food is terrible. You probably won’t last three months.” But the students would reply they weren’t afraid of hard work. They were going to complete their studies no matter what Booker T. Washington threw at them. And in that way, he prepared them—because life will throw some things at you.20
Though they obviously lived during distinctly different times, the lives of Washington and Obama mirror each other in some interesting manners that merit exploration.
To begin, both are biracial, and this complex and at times overly theorized identity lead their contemporaries and biographers to psychoanalyze them, especially in Obama’s case. Both carefully constructed personal histories for public consumption in which they