Michelle Obama (a.k.a. #FLOTUS) has gracefully carried her title for nearly eight years. As President Obama’s term is soon coming to a close, and we will lose our first African-American First Lady of the United States, it’s only fitting she receive credit for all the great things she’s done in the White House.
Obama, who has had a tenure serving the country prior to serving as First Lady, has had a long list of successful positions, initiatives and investments in improving our country.
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As a Princeton and Harvard Law graduate, Obama is very much qualified to start and continue programs for the welfare of those who serve our country and receive education in the US. After working for Sidney and Austin Law Firm in Chicago (where she met our beloved President), she worked as Assistant Commissioner of Planning and Development for the City of Chicago, the first Associate Dean at the University of Chicago, Vice President of Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Med Center and Founding Executive Director of the Chicago Chapter of Public Allies, an Americorps program which encourages youth to engage in public service.
“Long before Barack Obama was the president of the United States, and long before her most public claim to fame was president’s wife, the current first lady was an independent player in Chicago,” writer Peter Slevin said in an article for New York Times Women of the World column. “She adopted challenging issues at the intersection of race and community.”
During her time in the White House, Obama has established four of her own programs targeted for citizens of the United States, with causes ranging from childhood obesity to supporting US troops and families.
Obama’s Let’s Move! Program, founded in 2010, targets childhood obesity in our communities by rallying community leaders, educators and medical professionals. This program encourages better food and more physical activities in schools and a better, healthier food market for youth in America. The annual State Dinner and Garden on the Go! are two programs or events that go along with this initiative, and it coincides with the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) established in 2010.
Joining Forces, founded in 2011 by both Michelle Obama and Jill Biden promotes wellness, education and employment opportunities for US citizens in the armed forces and their families.
Joining Forces began at a time when the unemployment rate was 12 percent for service members returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and one in three of the youngest veterans who sought work could not find jobs, Obama said, according to the Department of Defense.
“We issued a call to people all across the country,” the First Lady said. “We challenged folks to ask themselves one simple question: 'What can I do to honor these families who have given us so much?’ And we were overwhelmed by the response we received.”
Reach Higher (2014) and Let Girls Learn (2015) are both educational programs designed to encourage youth to finish their education in US school systems and continue education past high school. Let Girls Learn strives to educate girls all over the world by helping them start school and stay in school until completion. Its main goal is to “educate and empower young women.”
With all the improvements and assets she has made to communities all over the country and the world, one can draw that the First Lady would make a stellar candidate for a future president. Obama, after her monumental speech at the Democratic National Convention, addressed that belief.
Why won’t Michelle Obama run for office?
According to Kate Andersen Brower, former White House correspondent and author of the book, First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies, according to a recent piece in Fortune Magazine, the answer is a simple one: “She doesn’t want to.”
““[Michelle Obama] is a reluctant First Lady,” Bower said, whose sources tell her that after eight years in the White House, Obama “feels trapped.”
Even so, and after any scrutiny she has had to endure as the First Lady of the US, she has successfully contributed to the bettering of our country. So here’s to who some call Beyonce’s Beyonce, the partner of the Leader of the Free World, First Lady, Michelle Obama.
