MICHELLE OBAMA (b. 1964)
Michelle Obama is a lawyer, writer, philanthropist, and former First Lady. As First Lady, she focused her attention on social issues such as poverty, education, and healthy living.
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson was born in 1964 in Chicago, IL and has an older brother. Raised with an emphasis on education, she and her brother both learned to read by the age of 4 and skipped 2nd grade. By 6th grade, Michelle was taking classes in her school’s gifted program and graduated high school in 1981 as class salutatorian.
Michelle attended college at Princeton, graduating cum laude and went on to study law at Harvard. After graduating law school, she worked in a private firm and specialized in entertainment law. Michelle met her husband, Barack, at the firm while he was a summer intern and she was assigned as his advisor.
In 1991, Michelle left corporate law to pursue a career in public service. She was an assistant to the Mayor, then served as assistant commissioner of planning a development for the city of Chicago. In 1993, Michelle became the director for the Chicago office of Public Allies, a non-profit that provides leadership training for young adults looking to get into the public sector.
In 1996, Michelle joined the University of Chicago as associate dean of student services, developing the school’s first community service program. She took a leave from her position at the university in 2008 to help campaign for her husband, Barack Obama, and ultimately helped him win the presidency both in 2008 and 2012.
During her time as First Lady, Michelle was involved in many causes, most notably supporting military families and addressing childhood obesity. In an effort to promote healthy eating, she planted a vegetable garden at the White House, a first since Eleanor Rosevelt’s Victory Garden during WWII.
In 2014, following her time in the White House, Michelle and her husband established the Obama Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to “inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world.”
In 2018, Michelle released her autobiography Becoming, which became on of the best selling memoirs in the history of publishing.
Michelle continues to inspire, encouraging education for girls through a global education initiative to keep girls in school longer, encouraging Americans to get and stay active politically, and championing for equal rights.
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