CHICAGO — In a single, 21-minute speech Tuesday night, Michelle Obama delivered a powerful encapsulation of nearly every key strategic aim of this week’s Democratic National Convention.
Analysis by Ashley Parker
She exalted Vice President Kamala Harris, lifting her up as a leader of both genuine substance and strong character — praising “the joy of her laughter and her light.” She linked Harris back to the hope-and-change coalition she and her husband rode to the White House in 2008.
And the former first lady roused the crowd inside Chicago’s United Center into near convulsions with a clear, revival-like directive: “Do something!”
Even before Michelle Obama was introduced, the crowd screamed in anticipation of her arrival as second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s speech wrapped up. As she took the stage, the convention hall throbbed, with delegates holding “USA” signs aloft and roaring.
Michelle Obama — who is famously skeptical of politics and who played a limited role in President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential bid — came out of the political wilderness Tuesday, clad in a sleeveless black tunic and with her hair tightly braided in a ponytail that fell long and thick down her back.
Delivered ahead of her husband’s own convention speech, Obama sent a message that was by turns both political and personal — speaking emotionally of her mother, Marian Robinson, who died this May, and briefly referencing herself becoming “a mother through IVF.” Obama also warned that Trump would distort the truth against Harris, demonizing her in much the same way he did to the Obamas.
“For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us,” she said. “His limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happened to be Black.”
Some delegates in the room, taking in her pointed remarks, had already begun to hoot and applaud when she paused, momentarily, before delivering her kicker: “Wait, I want to know — I want to know,” she said, raising her right hand and waving her index finger. “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs?’”
At that, the hall erupted, with many of the delegates leaping to their feet and looking around in jubilant disbelief as they took in her jab at Trump’s comments, earlier this summer, that migrants were taking “Black jobs.”
