Mrs. Obama also told the NAACP on July 12 - “Many of you probably grew up like I did — in a community that wasn’t rich, not even middle class..” “In these kind of strong African American communities, we went to neighborhood schools around the corner. So many of us had to walk to and from school every day, rain or shine. I know you’ve told that story. (Laughter.) And in Chicago, where I was raised, we did it in the dead of winter. (Laughter.) No shoes on our feet — it was hard, but we walked! (Applause.)”
Hardly humble: Michelle’s childhood home in Chicago
“Michelle was from a middle-class family,” confirmed one of her long-time friends, Angela Acree.
“She came from a regular family. They had a nice home. It wasn’t a mansion, but it was just fine. It was a decent neighbourhood.”
No one could pretend they were rich and it is true that her father, Frasier Robinson, spent some time as a maintenance worker for Chicago’s Department of Water Management.
However, he was a good deal more than the labourer that many seem to imagine.
Indeed, according to family friends, Michelle’s father was a volunteer organiser for the city’s Democratic Party, a by-word for machine politics in America, and his loyalty was rewarded with a well-paid engineering job at Chicago’s water plant. Even before overtime, he earned $42,686 - 25 per cent more than High School teachers at the time.
No shoes on our feet....baloney....
Drifting off-topic... the First Lady needs to relay this story of the benefits of neighborhood schools and their positive impact on communities to people in North Carolina caught up in the busing mess.