The Black President: Hope and Fury in the Age of Obama

by Claude A. Clegg III

In The Black President, the first interpretative, grand-narrative history of Barack Obama's presidency in its entirety, Claude A. Clegg III situates the former president in his dynamic, inspirational, yet contentious political context. He captures the America that made Obama's White House years possible, while insightfully rendering the America that resolutely resisted the idea of a Black chief executive, thus making conceivable the ascent of the most unlikely of his successors.

In elucidating the Obama moment in American politics and culture, this book is also, at its core, a sweeping exploration of the Obama presidency's historical environment,impact, and meaning for African Americans--the tens of millions of people from every walk of life who collectively were his staunchest group of supporters and who most starkly experienced both the euphoric triumphs and dispiriting shortcomings of his years in office. In Obama's own words, his White House years were "the best of times and worst of times" for Black America. Clegg is vitally concerned with the veracity of this claim, along with how Obama engaged the aspirations, struggles, and disappointments of his most loyal constituency and how representative segments of Black America engaged, experienced, and interpreted his historic presidency.

Clegg draws on an expansive archive of materials, including government records and reports, interviews, speeches, memoirs, and insider accounts, in order to examine Obama's complicated upbringing and early political ambitions, his delicate navigation of matters of race, the nature and impacts of his administration's policies and politics, the inspired but also carefully choreographed symbolism of his presidency (and Michelle Obama's role),and the spectrum of allies and enemies that he made along the way. The successes and the aspirations of the Obama era, Clegg argues, are explicitly connected to our current toxic political discourse. Combining lively prose with a balanced, nonpartisan portrait of Obama's successes and failures, The Black President will be required reading not only for historians, politics junkies, and Obama fans but also for anyone seeking to understand America's contemporary struggles with inequality, prejudice, and fear.

Genres: Politics, History, Biography, Nonfiction, American History, Race, Cultural

696 pages, Hardcover

First published October 12, 2021

Reviews

[Jeremy Anderberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable enough, but a little bit dry. I also don't generally enjoy thematically-organized books; I'd rather see a narrative with a through-line.

Who should read this book: People deeply interested in American politics and Black history. General readers should probably look to a different title for a primer on President Obama’s life and legacy; this is more of a 201 course than a 101.

[Vera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to the audio version. Well researched and interesting. Loved the subject matter, but the author’s approach to compiling the data and the telling of the stories could have been better. All in all, I’m glad to have read/listened. I miss the Obama presidency.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent look at the Obama presidency from an African American journalist. It is detached and a look in from the outside. Provides great information.

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

ARC from the Goodreads giveaway page - thank you to the publisher for my copy. EXCELLENT read. I admire President Obama so much: his courage, his conviction, and his hard work, on behalf of ALL citizens of this country. He came to my podunk little home town back in Ohio, during his first campaign, and I was standing proudly, with my sign & my fellow Democrats, to welcome him for his visit to Eastside Community Ministries. I got to call my (late) big sister, out in IL that night, to tell her I had seen our future President, and I will always be glad I worked on both his campaigns, despite the ugly I heard/saw in Muskingum County. Our Mommy would be proud of me following in her footsteps, standing for the GOOD still to be found, in this great nation and Her people. I encourage you to read this book, reflect on our democratic republic and what it means to YOU, and VOTE. We must save America, and I believe it's not too late to BE that difference, BE that voice, BE that worker for freedom, as President Obama was, and still IS!

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid and objective analysis of the Obama Presidency. It is really a good thing to read as it puts 12 years of politics in America in perspective and brings us right up to the present interesting times.

[John Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

An early historical review of the Obama Presidency could not be more insightful. Claude A. Clegg III's stunning effort to capture the meaning, and the significance to the world, of a Black citizen elected to the office of President of the United States will go far in directing future historians. With a gimlet eye for all the events around this presidency,Clegg helps us see it largely as it affects not only the Black citizens who celebrated this achievement, but its larger impact on the amalgamation of those making up his coalition. We discover its effect too on his adversaries. No major event of both his terms is left unaddressed. His ability to inspire through wise social programs is catalogued, significantly through his success with the Affordable Care Act. This act brought millions under a protection of health insurance they'd never had. His adversaries were legion, opposing his genuine attempts to reach out to make of America the hoped for common ground of progress. How he brought his nation back from the brink of economic disaster in his first term is memorable. His personal distance, remarked upon by many, is examined. In total, you will begin to understand the man, and his hopes to make America a place of hope for all.

[Earl Ecklund III · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not your traditional book about a President and his presidency that discusses policy battles and how an administration handled challenges. This book focuses on Barrack Obama, his relationship with the African-American/Black community, the Obama administration's struggles to enact universal policies that would "rise all boats even the ones with holes in them" instead of a more Black-centric agenda.

The chapters on the Congressional Black Caucus, Michelle Obama, and the Obama administration's policies towards Africa are very informative and among the best. The section on Obama's second term is more condensed and lacking in the same amount of insight. This is probably due to the recentness of Obama's administration.

Overall I think this is a good book for anyone interested in how Black America fared under in the Obama years but not a great book on the Obama presidency.

[James Junke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive and thorough analysis of the Obama Presidency through a Black American prism. Thoughtful, balanced, insightful and informative. Enlivened by many, funny anecdotes. More treatment of the role of Black Americans in the nuts and bolts of his historic, back to back elections would have been instructive. Perhaps by some judicious editing some of the too long chapters cataloguing every notable Black personality used to explicate his thematic treatment of issues.

[Raghav Jindal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very good

[Sanders Kleinfeld · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful and thoroughly engrossing account of the Obama presidency.

[Amy Byers · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book!!! It was really worth the wait in getting it!! Loved it!!!

[Kathy Spann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed book about Obama and his presidency and beyond.

[Jessica Brazeal Slaven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this recently released biography of the Obama Presidency and loved it. It was very comprehensive without dragging along in all the potential details and also did a great job of talking about these 8 years and their historical context and implications for the future.

[Jeffrey Herrmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Each chapter followed a pattern: retell a news story from Obama’s presidency and then share what various pundits and academics had to say—some approving, some not. Nice as a historical overview, but not terribly illuminating. The book’s argument—which could have been shared in a pamphlet—is that Obama preferred race-neutral initiatives which nevertheless disproportionately helped people of color. But Obama’s cautious approach to race and any race-based policies disappointed many in the Black community and didn’t even have the benefit of making his Republican opposition any less insistent that he was a radical leftist ideologue. This left him to walk a sometimes lonely road in the middle—but isn’t the definition of a good compromise that no one is happy?