President Obama in conversation with Yara Shahidi and Obama Foundation Program Participants

(upbeat instrumental music) (audience cheering and applauding) - Wow, what can I do where I am? What can I do to make things a little better where I live? That's the question Toni Morrison asked herself when she was a young editor in the midst of the civil rights movement, when changes were happening around her. What can I do where I am? She decided to use her gifts, her passion, and her position as an editor to basically elevate the ideas, words, and voices of the people around her, to make sure they were seen and heard. Then she became one of those voices herself, writing novels that ensured that every face was seen, that every voice was heard, that every story was told in a way that changed not only literature, but helped define who we are as a world. town.

What can I do where I am? That question and many others like it are at the heart of what we aim to do at the Obama Foundation. When people ask that question or a question like that, what can I do where I am?, we want them to be inspired by that question so that they do not look to their left or to their right or to another person, but to look first inside themselves. for the voice and the power that they have, but then start to analyze what needs to be done in their community. That is your responsibility.

We seek to empower them whether they are in South Africa, in Southeast Asia or right here on the South Side of Chicago, not by giving them something that they don't have yet, but with some tools and some support so that they can be more powerful than they imagine and More importantly, once we do, we will look to connect them. We seek to connect this network of changemakers because there is a truth that you are all seeing here at this meeting: although we all have voice, power and agency, none of us do anything alone. The things we accomplish together are far greater than what we can do alone, which is why meetings like this are manifested digitally with our online tools and our storytelling tools.

And then one day, one day, on the South Side of Chicago, in Jackson Park, at the Obama Presidential Center, there will be a place, a place that will be a beacon for people who, when they ask that question: "What can I do?" do?" Where am I?" They know there's a place on the South Side of Chicago where hope lives. That's what we're doing (audience applauds) and when you bring people together and make connections like we've made, and you're witness how important it is for a young person who is beginning their leadership journey to be guided and inspired by someone who is a little further along in their journey, now they see how where I am and what I can do becomes real for many people, and so today, I'm very proud to present a

conversation

that will allow you to see how to do that.

I would like you to join me in welcoming the

participants

of our Obama Foundation

program

to the fourth stage. welcome DeAndre Brown, Samira Koujok, Mimi González and Awah Francisca Mbuli Please welcome them to the stage (audience applauds and cheers) and these powerful young people will participate in an incredible

conversation

with a brilliant young actor, organizer and activist, Yara Shahidi, and ladies and gentlemen, the 44th President of the United States. States of America, Barack Obama. (audience applauding and cheering) (murmurs) (upbeat instrumental music) (laughter) - I don't... - What's going on out there? (mumbling) Alright, everyone calm down. (audience laughing) - Hello everyone.

I feel very honored to be here. Can we see what everyone's day has been like? (audience applauding) - Good, excellent. - It's been pretty incredible and I feel really honored to be here and share space with incredible leaders in their own right and start a fascinating conversation that continues in the vein of I think everything we've heard this morning and everything we continue to do. Hear about the importance of the individual and the importance of our communities that raise us. And I think should we just get down to business? Alright? - Let's go in. - Yes, why not? - Well, what I loved is the theme of this conference that talks about place because I think for me place is always really represented by interacting with your history and the legacy of the place where you are.

One of the only tattoos I have on my body, this is a side note but it will make sense in a second. - Mom wonders where this is going now. - In fact, we have tattoos in the same place... - Oh, there you go. - She knows exactly where this is going, but it's 1963, and to me it represents the work that was done that year, as well as the atrocities that occurred that year, from the Birmingham Church bombing and the murder of Medgar Evers to the March. about Washington and, more importantly, a broader idea of ​​people continuing to work for a future that was not necessarily guaranteed but that he considered essential.

And I know that 1963 was also a pivotal year for Chicago, as 200,000 students boycotted school segregation policies, so when talking about place, one of my first questions is, how do we, as a community, continue the legacy from work? What is presented to us? - Well, first of all, I am delighted with this representation of incredible young leaders that I have had the opportunity to meet, see, learn from and be inspired by around the world, and Yara, thank you. for participating and helping moderate this. The goal of the

foundation

is to create more and more platforms through which all of you can thrive and succeed, and one thing to remember about 1963 is that most of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were your age.

I mean, Dr. King, when he started the Montgomery bus boycott he was 25, 26 years old. Think about that. John Lewis, who is one of the only ones left, in fact, I think he is the only living person in the original

program

that I put together. They gave it to me as a gift from the March on Washington, he was just 20, 21, so it's a place to start when you're thinking, where do we go next? How can we continue to achieve greater equality, greater justice, greater opportunities? It is remembering that the same doubts, uncertainties, struggles, difficulties, challenges that can sometimes overwhelm them, they were going through, the same divisions and discussions about, how should we approach social change?

Who should be in charge? What are our best tactics? They were having those same discussions and arguments, and perhaps most importantly I think it's really helpful to remind us that they were part of a continuum just as you are part of a continuum, so we were talking behind the scenes about the notion of nonviolence. endurance. Well, Dr. King and the civil rights workers had learned the idea of ​​nonviolent resistance from watching Gandhi in India and the movement to achieve independence from colonialism, and so they were part of that continuum. They were part of a continuum from Charles Hamilton Houston, one of the first African Americans to attend Harvard Law School, who helped craft the strategy with Thurgood Marshall that ultimately led to Brown v.

Board of Education. That was another part of the river they were merging with. Rosa Parks had learned to sit not only because her feet were tired, but because the Highlander School, which drew on some of the activist traditions dating back to the Great Depression and before, was part of the creek. So you're part of that continuum, and the good news is that when you start to feel like you're part of something bigger, that you're taking over from someone else and then you're running your stage of the race, and then you pass it on, A, you don't feel so alone.

B, it also gives you a sense of perspective and some patience because it is very rare for change to happen overnight. Now, when you're young, you're supposed to be impatient. If you are too patient and you are young, you may not get where you want to go, but the danger of impatience is that you can become discouraged if change doesn't come right away, and I think the most important thing for all of you is to remember. that the work you are doing in this place right now will not be the beginning or the end. And as long as you're doing good work in that moment, in that moment, and helping people concretely to move the needle a little bit, to push that rock uphill a little bit, then you can be satisfied with that, and that's what builds . over time, but I don't know.

Makes sense? Mimi, what do you think of the question? How do you think about being a part, as a really young person, and are you trying to figure out in your specific community when you're out there making change, you're thinking about the struggles of the people who came before you, or you're thinking about the struggles of the people who came before you? You just think, “Man, this looks hard,” and “How can I do it now?” And what do you think? - Well, I'm not really focused on whether it's difficult for me. - Tell us a little.

A little bit about what you're doing so people know. I'm Mimi and I'm with the Hartford Community Leadership Corps. We're trying to create an organization called Wealthy Minds, so don't think. Think of the wealthy as well-being, which is why Wealthy Minds, and basically what we want to do, which is why there are a lot of resources in Hartford, but a lot of people don't know where they are. Maybe they have access. problem, or they just don't know how to access these resources, so my group and I want to create a platform and a space where we can connect these people in Hartford with the resources that we already have, and while we do that we also want to connect it with the arts because whenever something happens in the community, the way we express the pain is through the arts.

Sometimes we want to listen to music, or we want to talk, or we go see a movie. Whatever it is, the arts provide an outlet for everyone, and that's what we want to do, so we had our first pop-up event two weeks ago and it was amazing. We had about 50 people attend and we partnered with the Jordan Porco Foundation, Hartford Psychological Services, and the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective, and they provided resources that we were able to give back to people who were already in our community, and We had a drag artist perform. We had a spoken word singer and it felt like a healing space towards something better. - Excellent, fantastic. (Audience applauds) Do you want to move on to another question?

Because I have questions for all these people. (audience laughs) - Yes, then let's... - Because they are actually much more interesting than me (audience laughs) or at least you have heard more about me than them. - Okay, so for someone else to tell us, let's listen to DeAndre, who has a question about what catalyzes change. - Okay, good afternoon. You have to be formal for television, you know? But my question is: I know the passion and drive it takes to work hard and change something, and to do something that many other people can't do. As a black man, what made you believe that you can change an entire country or change things in an entire country in a place where you were, especially I've been told I can't do it, and when did that happen? - When I was a child they dropped me on my head (audience laughs) and that's why I didn't make any sense.

I think this actually connects to Yara's earlier question about how we sustain a movement. There is a corollary to this: how do we maintain our own sense of hope, drive, vision and motivation, and how do we dream big? And at least for me it wasn't a straight line. It wasn't a constant progression. It was an evolution that took place over time as I tried to align what I believed most deeply with what I saw around me and with my own actions. One of the things I used to do, community organizer trainings, and we used to tell people, if you want to know what your values ​​are right now, look at where you're investing your time, your money, and your energy.

You may tell yourself that you're really community-minded, but if all your time, money and energy goes into going to the club or playing sports, then that's really what's important to you. Now the thing is, when I was young, I said before that I was a bit stupid. When I was your age, I wasn't sitting on stage talking in a serious voice (audience laughs) I was out there trying to date a girl or playing basketball or doing things I shouldn't have been doing. But what started to happen was that I would read, say, about Nelson Mandela and the struggles in South Africa, and I would be in a class, I would raise my hand and have an opinion, or a representative of the African National Congress would come to campus, they were my age. and they were at risk of being imprisoned or were in exile trying to fight.

And I say to myself, hmm, if I really believe in that, then what am I doing about it, what am I willing to give up, and what am I willing to sacrifice? So there was a long process for me of aligning what I said I believed with my behavior and then testing what I could change to make the world better align with what I believed and my values, so the first stage is just kind of figuring out, it's Well, what do you really believe? What is really important to you? Not what you pretend is important to you, but what is really important to you and what are you willing to risk or sacrifice for it?

The nextphase is when you test it against the world, and the world kicks you in the teeth and says, "You may think this is important," but you know what? "We have other ideas," and who are you? "And you can't change anything," and then you go through a phase where you try to develop skills and courage and resilience, and you try to adapt your actions to the scale of whatever influence you have, so I came to Chicago and I'm working on the south side trying to clean up a park or improve a school, and sometimes I succeed.

A lot of times I fail, but over time, you start to gain a little confidence with some small victories, and that gives you the power to analyze and say, "Hey, this is what worked. "This is what didn't work. "This is what I need more "to achieve the vision" or goals I have. “Now let me try to take it to the next level,” which means more failure and more frustration because you're trying to expand the orbit of your impact, and I think it's that iterative process. It's not like you come up with some grand theory about how I'm going to change the world, and suddenly everything goes by clockwork, at least not for me.

For me, it was more about trying to be the person I wanted to believe I was and, in each phase, challenging myself and testing myself against the world to see if I could actually have an impact and make a difference. Over time you are surprised and it turns out that you can, and by the way, I took a particular path, but I imagine for those of you who are, let's say, teachers, the first time you go to a classroom, those children go to say, "You clearly don't know what you're talking about" (audience laughs) and they'll get bored, they'll test you, and you'll get frustrated and not depressed.

I know this because my sister is a teacher and then over time you gain more confidence. Is the same. If you run a health clinic or you're trying to get involved in human rights work, it's this constant fine-tuning, matching your values, your actions and your impact, and that takes time, so you shouldn't wait until you're 18. that you have a master plan. Samira, you are doing extraordinary work in some of the most difficult places imaginable with people who have been severely traumatized by a terrible conflict. I guess you've had to go through a similar phase where you often say to yourself, "How can I have any impact on something so big?" Maybe you can share with people what it means. it's what you're doing and then describe how you thought about it, because you're a little older than DeAndre.

You look the same age, but you've already been able to build an organization and focus your work, so there you are. a little further down that road. Tell us a little about what that was like. Well, for starters, what matters is exactly what you were talking about, the small victories because, yes, we mobilize and we resist. We fail, but we always find some kind of small victories that give us hope to continue and move forward, but we learn from our failures. And I work in the field of missing persons in the Syrian conflict and, as you know, I do.

I mean, the conflict is all over the Middle East, and what we do is try to, first of all, allow people to have a voice because it's very important. It is very important to change the narratives, and once we are able to change the narratives, we can mobilize more, stand in solidarity with different people who are going through the same things. For the moment, the fighting continues because there is still no peace in Syria, but the people are empowered. People are empowered through international advocacy, through different mechanisms available to them and through their own voice, the stories they write, and here comes the importance of human rights and education at the same time because not only Try to build on the now, but take advantage of the youth, and they will continue to fight this until we can get somewhere beautiful. (mumbling) (audience applauding) - I feel like what everyone is saying also relates to this conversation that's being had about focusing on impact on legacy, and part of the action is living in a moment that is so consistent in the present that you don't necessarily think about what you are leaving behind, but part of appreciating small victories is recognizing the impact that is generated in each exchange. - Look, yeah, I used to have these sessions at the end of the White House internship cycle, where there were usually about 200 White House interns who had interned in various offices for about six months, and I would come at the end. of their internship with a group session, and they asked questions, and they were all high achieving, type A, they got As.

They didn't act like I acted at their age, so invariably someone would ask me, "Mr. President." They wouldn't be that bold, but basically it was, "How can I be

president

?" (Audience laughs) In the sense that they were asking, no, in a sincere way, they were asking: "I am inspired by the idea of ​​public service." Which path should I take? "How should I think about it?" And what I used to tell them, which was something an older friend of mine had told me when he was still organizing. I remember he told me and I passed it on to these young people.

Worry more about what you want to do than what you want to be. Part of the problem with politics is that, whether in Washington, D.C. or in any other capital in the world, many people came there because they had an idea in their head: "I want to be a congressman," or I want to be a member of Parliament, "or I want to be X, Y, Z." And first of all, you're playing a bit of a lottery because there are a limited number of those seats available, but the other thing is that when that's your focus, you can spend 10 years just trying to be something, and when you get there it turns out. that you have no idea what you want to do with it, so you have no moral compass.

You don't have any problem or cause for which you are willing to sacrifice everything or lose your seat. The only thing that is important to you is to continue being what you wanted to be, or to be next in whatever pecking order, whereas if you focus on what you want to do, the question you ask yourself is, "How?" Can I give these "no-advantages" kids a great education? And I can start teaching, or I can decide that I'm going to start an after-school program, or I can decide that I'm going to be a mentor in the meantime.

I'm paying rent, doing something else, or I can decide to hire some of these young people and train them and organically, by doing that, it can result in your influence expanding and you gaining experience. that field, and suddenly you are a leader in advancing what you cared about, and if you end up in a high position or at the head of a large organization, what have you, you are very clear about what you are doing about it and, by the way , if it doesn't work out exactly as you planned, along the way, all of these people will have been touched.

All this good has been done and your life is full, so, yes, chasing an office or a position is a bit like just chasing money. I don't want to put it down in the sense that you need money to pay rent. You need a job. That's honorable and right, but after a certain point, the people that I find who end up being the most satisfied, even if they're in business, are the people who were just really passionate about what they wanted to do. That's what got them excited, and as a result of that passion, it turned out that they ended up being very successful in business, so, Awah, tell us how you've been thinking about your passion, and I know you were telling me.

Behind the scenes you tell me that some of the things you wanted to do haven't been done yet, and so how do you process that, how do you deal with it and move on? - Thank you, Your Excellency. - And tell everyone-- (audience laughing) - Being a survivor of human trafficking and coming from a community where everyone believes that we have to (mumble) in life traveling abroad, and then trying to dissuade the people of that idea, it seems It's very difficult, but we have to break boundaries. I go around. I also do my own thing with survivors because we are led by women.

We pass through the communities (murmurs). We talk to people, show them short videos, photographs of who was there during that terrible experience and the present (murmurs). We have changed. That abruptness no longer exists. It is very difficult to convince them, but our passion remains alive. Your passion may be food, and if you don't eat, you won't be happy. My passion is fighting human trafficking, so if I don't go there to make a change, I feel like something is missing, so I always move on. We push so hard that we don't even feel the pain. We simply feel the joy because we realize what we are doing.

Because of what we're doing, a lot of people have learned what human trafficking is in my community because at first, like (mumbling), they saw it as a sign of prestige in their community or a source for greater livelihood, but our work is making changes. It is crossing borders. People come to us with positive stories. We don't end there. We also started doing job training because some people will say, "You don't want me to do this." You don't want it to come out, "so what do I do?" We try to empower women in economic employment and vocational training plans.

They (mumbling) can and are doing well in their community. They have now realized that their community resources can also be used, so our passion has been satisfied and changes are being made. Thank you, Your Excellency. (Audience applauding) - Wow. - And so it feels like there's this connection between everyone in this room of staying purpose-driven and united by our drive to do consistently and at the same time, we've also had this conversation about access and importance of access and resources, as well as the importance of your personal circumstances influencing or feeling like they influence what you can or cannot do, which relates to Samira's question about what happens when there are certain things that seem to prevent you from doing it. - Samira, did you... - Actually, yes, I have a question.

Thanks Yara. - Yes, she prepared you. (Audience laughs) - So you mention a lot the importance of peace and peacekeepers in transforming communities, and we only talk about the time it takes and the small victories, but sometimes there are peacekeepers and peacekeepers who They put their safety at risk when they try to step up, fight and resist, so what can we do when it comes to that? - Well, this is something we've been struggling with at the Foundation. I struggled with that as

president

. There are parts of the world where being an activist is not just a matter of sacrificing a higher salary or longer work hours or experiencing frustration because your problem is not moving as quickly as you would like.

There are parts of the world where you will be imprisoned. There are parts of the world where you can be killed. There are parts of the world where, even if you are not killed or imprisoned, your family may be threatened or lose their jobs and livelihoods because you have been exercising your voice, and there are some

participants

in this summit who are operating with extraordinary courage in those circumstances. And part of my personal advice to these defenders is to do what you can, but this is a long road, so if at any time the threats or dangers that arise from your work become too great, you should not. feel like you're somehow compromised if you strategically say, "Okay, I have to be careful" about how I approach these issues." I'll give you an example.

We used to have these young leaders forums around the world. when I was still president , and if we did it in most European countries, many of the young leaders would be openly political. They would be human rights activists, or they would be young parliamentarians, and they would be challenging the status quo and protesting and etc. For example in Vietnam, we had a body of young leaders, I think we eventually had like 70,000 members online who would meet and discuss strategies etc. so they were presenting their work as a business in a country where business was. welcome. Entrepreneurship was welcome.

Overtly political work could be in jeopardy, so someone who was concerned about environmental issues there could have a startup designed to figure out how to bring clean energy to a community or how to recycle, rather than outright saying, “Government, you should do X, Y, Z." And I think it's helpful to remind ourselves that there are many different ways to make an impact. Now, if what's inside you forces you to take big risks, then that's great, and I, to the extent that I can, certainly when I was president, it's harder now because I don't have some of those formal levers, I want to create a way to protect.

So, for those who participate in that type of activity in countries where it is dangerous, my best advice is to make common cause so as not to be isolated. (mumbling) If you are a journalist in a country that exercises severe censorship, you are part of an international organization of journalists that knows who you are and sees you so that, if suddenly you are not there, it is there to defend you and can exert some international pressure, that becomes important. And that's one of the reasons that one of the functions of the Foundation over time, my hope is that it creates enoughconnectivity between people working on these issues around the world and within this country so that no one is alone.

When you're alone, it's hard. Going back to the point you made about the Civil Rights Movement, everyone was scared. If you went to Mississippi or Alabama in the early '60s, you tried to register people to vote, it was scary. People were killed or beaten, which is why courage was generated by taking that leap collectively. - Yes. - What other questions do we have? Because I want to make sure I don't get in trouble. I will speak. (Audience laughs) Who hasn't had a chance to ask a question? - I have not. - Forward. - Okay, my question (mumbles), Your Excellency. - Although your excellence makes me feel old. (audience laughing) You know?

You can call me Barack. I guess Barack is good, Mr. Obama, if necessary. - Okay, I come from Cameroon and we have a constant crisis there. I'm not a politician, but my question (mumbles): How can we create economically viable communities for people who serve in places where conflict threatens progress? - Well, that's a great question. - Yes. - So maybe I'll broaden it a little bit to say that one of the biggest challenges we all face in wanting to create a more just society is that there are some fundamental material needs that people need to thrive.

It is not as much as those of us who live in rich countries think, but food, shelter, medical care and drinking water are needed. There are some basics, and one of the things that even on the South Side of Chicago used to be a challenge, there was a saying in the black church that it's hard to preach on an empty stomach, and that's why social justice advocates . We cannot ignore economic justice. - Of course. - And it's important for us to constantly incorporate at least an awareness of what the economic impediments to justice can be, so if you're advocating on their behalf, that's why the story that I was telling was so powerful about women Young people are vulnerable to human trafficking.

Partly because they're trying to figure out how I can... - Get a life. - How do I live? And if someone comes to me and says, "Oh, if you go abroad, that's the land of milk and honey." - Of course. - And you have nothing, you are more vulnerable. - Of course. - Well, there are versions of that everywhere. The young people who are in drug trafficking a few blocks from here are because they are in a community in which the fabric of regular work has been broken, and that is the economic framework. That's what they see, so we can't ignore the economic elements.

Now, strategies for economic development in rural Cameroon will be different than strategies on the South Side of Chicago. There is a basic prerequisite for economic development, and that is that it can be done. There won't be people killing each other. Syria's economy will not recover anytime soon. The economies of countries that are in the middle of ethnic conflict suffer because I was talking to Bill Gates about some of the fantastic work they have done. His

foundation

does it in terms of vaccination and other organizations that work developing these great seeds that can increase agricultural yields, but if all the farmers have fled because a group of kids have AK-47s and are shooting and robbing people, no you will do it. achieve economic development.

So there is a basic justice, that people do not die or be at war in order to build some type of economic development strategy. I can talk here and, by the way, that's why the place is so important. Let's just take the example of the south side of Chicago. Chicago is a rich city in the richest country in the world, but there is a segment of this city that does not share in that wealth as it should. Part of the reason Michelle and I decided to locate the Presidential Center here is so that it can serve as a catalyst to link the economies of downtown Chicago and the North Side of Chicago with the South Side of Chicago and, eventually, the West Side from Chicago. (Audience claps and applauds) And by bringing a multi-million dollar project here, one of our goals is to make sure that we are able to create new opportunities for the young people who live here.

In one of the sessions, Charles Barkley talked about how frustrated he feels because there are not enough young people in the African-American community who are dedicated to the trades of plumbers or electricians. Well, part of the historical reason is that they were discriminated against and prevented from joining unions to be part of those trades, but part of it is also that culturally we somehow thought, well, that's not a great career. It's great to be a carpenter, plumber or electrician and make a very good living, so when we started making offers to see who could do the job, we said, if you don't have a plan to get young. people from this community on the path of training for these trades, so that at the end of what will be a four-year project, we don't just have a building, but we suddenly have a bunch of young people who suddenly can now Si If you want to work on the next building and the next project, then you probably won't work for us. (Audience applauds) We have small businesses.

We have small commercial districts in the surrounding community around the site where the library will be located. Some of them are fighting. We anticipate that 700, 800,000 people will come to visit the library and the Presidential Center. Well, before it gets built, we need to work with that small local restaurant or that local print shop or whatever you say, okay, they're coming. What do you need to take advantage of this flow of clients that will come? So that's an example of being strategic. Our goal is to transform the world, the country and the South Side of Chicago, but in this place right now I have this building that is going to be built and that is an engine, a mechanism for economic development.

In rural Cameroon, it could be different. It could be that what really makes the difference is if we can give small loans to local farmers so that they have a small surplus to enable them to buy a tractor that they can share between five farmers, which in turn increases their yield. , and maybe after several seasons, they can now do their own processing of that sorghum or corn. And instead of the owner taking their profits... - The company. - The processing plant, they can make their own processing plant on site, sell it directly to a store, and now they start hiring some more people, and now they start creating jobs.

Each place will have a different strategy. Now I have to say that this is not an easy thing to do because now we have global capital that can move around the planet in a second, and people who have a lot of money want more money, and it's easier for them a lot of times I say, "Well , I'm going to invest "in some luxury things downtown," or I'm going to invest in rich countries "and create an app "where a bunch of kids will waste their money." "in a game instead of investing in farmers "in Cameroon or in a restaurant in the south." So there's a lot of decision making that's global, and you're trying to get some of those resources local, and there is where organizing and being strategic about how we do it is really important, and that's why it's important for social justice advocates to connect with local businesses and connect with nonprofits and connect with other institutions If there's a university somewhere. place, or a school somewhere, how do we figure out, whatever resources we have in that place, how do we maximize them to get some influence?

And that's a hard thing to do, but nobody said it was going to be easy. to say, (mumbling) if you're looking for the easy, you're at the wrong summit. (Audience laughs) - But your comments remind me of something an activist named (mumbling) told me, and he had basically said the importance of standing up for someone. or to some people besides yourself is that if you only defend yourself, all you are asking is for the colonial infrastructures to work in your favor. All you're asking for is a shift in privilege instead of this conversation of positioning yourself as part of a global community, positioning yourself as someone who is accountable to people you may not have interacted with because that's a process of deprivileging. space first, to form a word. (Audience laughs) - That's a pretty good word, but no, look.

You are raising a really important point and this is something we all have to struggle with. I had to fight with that. DeAndre, you'll have to fight with. (Audience laughs) No, obviously you are talented and there will be opportunities for you within the existing structure to perform well according to the standards that are sold to us. - Of course. - About what it means to be successful, and I think each of us has to make constant decisions about how to balance the need to pay rent, and we want our moms to be proud of us and know what the hell we are.

You are doing. I remember telling my mother, grandmother, and grandfather that I was moving to Chicago to be a community organizer. They're all like, "Huh? "What?" (audience laughing) And then I explained to them, no, they pay me $13,000 a year. Even in 1985, that was bankrupt. (audience laughing) I mean, even back then, even adjusting for inflation, like I was eating tuna every night, I didn't have a real bed because the place was too small, so I had this little futon mattress that I couldn't afford. laughing). I rolled that thing up, put it in the closet, took it out.

I was alone most of that year, waiting for Michelle, so (audience laughing and applauding) where was I? It was so cold that year, but... - Oh, man, that was funny. - All my friends, because I had gone to a fancy school, and all my classmates, all of them I enrolled in law school or business school, and. A career was created, and I had the privilege because I was not, my family was not rich. They were lower middle class, but we had enough and I did. a good enough education. I told him, okay, if I ever need to get a job just to make money, I can do it, so I can take some risks.

Some people don't have that luxury, but, as Yara points out, each of us has to constantly remind ourselves that we were born into a society. We can't completely remake society in a minute, so we have to make some adaptations to existing structures. You work both as an actress and as a student. Samira, even while you're doing your advocacy, you have to fund it, which means you have to talk to some people who have money, and some of them may have money from places that, if you look at it, you might say, "I'm not crazy about it." What are you doing, but thank you very much. (Audience laughs) We are all adapting to the structures that are presented, but this goes back to the point where I was. ?The problem?

And this idea of ​​purity, and you're never compromised, and you're always politically awake and all that, you should get over it quickly. There are people who do really good things. love their children and share certain things with you, and I think that's a danger that I see among young people, particularly on college campuses, Malia and I talk about this Yara goes to school with my daughter, but sometimes I have a. sensation among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social networks. Sometimes I feel like my way of making changes is to judge other people as much as possible, and that's enough.

For example, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or used the wrong verb, or then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because, "Man, do you see how awake I was? "I called you. "(Audience laughs). I'm going to be on TV. Watch my show. Watch 'Grown-ish.' (Audience laughs). That's not activism. That's not going to create change. If all you're doing is throwing stones, They probably won't go that far. That's easy to do (audience applauds). I think talking about the importance of media and social networks being the cornerstone of that, there is also this big step in the importance of the narrative, which actually relates to what Mimi wanted to ask. - She could be, (mumbling) oh, look, this is an Oprah-level transition. - Those are really good.

See how she's working it? , Mimi, you for that transition-- - Very impressive - Hello, given our theme for this year's summit and how the place reveals our purpose, the arts and film in particular can influence our purpose as a nation, then? What's a film that has a big impact on you, and can you give advice to young leaders and filmmakers like me on how to leverage their craft to help shape our future? - Wow, well, we were talking about this a little bit behind the scenes, that there is a reason why we want to incorporate the arts into the Presidential Center.

One of our goals is to create a recording studio where young people can come and train with Yara, Steven Spielberg or Chance the Rapper on howThey use the arts to tell a story and build communities. And being able to have concerts, readings and theater because most social changes begin with a story. We go back to 1963 or even further back. The reason the Civil Rights Movement achieved everything it did was not because John Lewis and the SNCC workers had an army behind them. At first, they didn't even have the laws behind them, but they did have a story behind them, a story about doing unto others and a story about we are all children of God and a story about justice going on. descending like waters and justice like a mighty torrent.

There was a story that they took advantage of and it turned out to be more powerful than armies, ybilly clubs and dogs. Just as I mentioned Gandhi before, he had a story about what the Indian subcontinent and this 5,000-year-old culture was, and that people who seemed poor were full of a life force that could not be matched by the great British Empire. Stories start things. The Berlin Wall falls. No missiles are fired. The other side had a better story, so our goal is to make sure the Presidential Center incorporates that understanding of stories. Now to your question, I will expand it not only to movies because I will tell you.

When I was a black kid growing up in Hawaii, the movies that influenced me were influenced like "Shaft" (singing) because there weren't a lot of brothers that were cool. That had an influence. I was like, man, look at Richard Roundtree. He is a bad guy. (audience laughs) For those of you who aren't familiar with (mumbling), probably the things that changed me the most were the novels or the essays, James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time" or the autobiography of Malcolm books about the complexities of politics and change and how individuals become trapped in society, books like "All the Kings Men" by Robert Penn Warren or "In Dubious Battle" by John Steinbeck.

There were books like Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon" that changed my understanding of the beauty of a very specific place that people maybe don't see or the beauty of lives that are forgotten, or there were books like some of the most powerful things. What changed me were books by people who weren't like me, so I read "The Golden Notebook" by Doris Lessing. It's a novel. It's actually about a British-born woman in South Africa who moves to London in the '60s and '70s, but it was one of the first books to show women not as the love interest or companion, but as someone who complicates and challenges it. roles and it feels like agency, and it helped me get out of my own things because that's the only problem.

You watch "Shaft" and then that doesn't necessarily help you with the way you think about women. There are all these ambiguities that you have to resolve. That's what happens with the arts. If you get close and look at enough different things—I started reading Latin American writers like Cortázar, Fuentes, or Rulfo—and suddenly you realize, "Oh, in Mexico or Argentina, they're going through things that I'm going through." - That's how it is. - That's interesting, so that's probably what changed me the most. I'll say it, but I mentioned "Shaft," but it could have been any number of things, Sidney Poitier.

For African Americans in In My Generation, the representation of black men in positions of authority or for black girls, like Diahann Carroll, who recently died. She had a show on television, the first black woman to have a show where she wasn't just a maid or a helper. her best friends, but she was actually the central figure. Those things end up being important, and when you think about the arts in any community, you think about, how do kids imagine themselves? An old book my mother used to read to me was called "The Snowy Day." Now some of you know it.

Look everyone (mumbling). For those of you who don't know the book, it's just the classic children's book. It is about a small child. He runs away. It is winter. He wants to build a snowman. He gets like this snowball and puts it in his pocket. It's very close to that. He melts. He's a little sad about that. It's a very simple story. It's a kind of collage. My mother read it to me when I was three or four years old, but it is the first children's book from a major publisher, the child was black. He wasn't commented on, it wasn't like, oh, ghetto boy.

You are in the snow. (audience laughs) It was like, no, no, he's just a kid growing up. It turned out he was black and I didn't even remember it until I looked at the book years later and thought, huh. That was probably important, that's how art moves me, and in fact, when it comes to children's books, I've said it before. I believe this. I think pretty much everything you need to know is in Dr. Seuss books. (Audience laughs) If you read about the Lorax, then you know about climate change. If you're reading about Lazy Mayzie and "Horton Hears a Who," you already know, don't be Lazy Mayzie.

Work. Dr. Seuss covers most things. That's not the answer you were expecting, I'm sure. (audience laughing) I mean, I love "The Godfather" and I can give you a list of movies that I love, but (audience laughing) okay, what else (mumble)? How are we on time? - Time, we have fallen a little, but I think I want to close this session. You've already talked about the Presidential Center and we've taken a look at all the amazing things that are to come, but I think about the larger Obama Foundation and how much it has done to not only maintain a sense of local community and continue to invest in the local community, but also connecting the local with the global, all the global initiatives that you are doing.

And as someone who is black and Iranian, has a family that is actually here from the south side of Chicago, who I think sums up what it means to be a leader and what it means to invest in the community, I guess I wonder how the Is the Presidential Center another way to do that, to make this a space for young leaders to connect and for us to create change? - Well, I think you described it well, but Michelle and I, when we decide what we are going to do next, there are a lot of issues that we care about and that we will work on, but the most important thing that we thought we could do is spend the witness as many people as possible and cultivate as much talent as possible at all levels.

And so you are all part of that initial effort to build a platform where we can not only provide training and ideas and offer some expertise on how to achieve social change, but also how you can connect and learn from each other, which is still more powerful? And how can you make sure that you're not alone and how can you recognize how your work connects with someone maybe on the other side of the country or the other side of the world, or maybe just on the other side of town? And that's how our programming is designed.

However, we also realise, and this speaks to the importance of place, that for us simply having a central office somewhere from which we issue reports and occasionally travel to take photographs was not going to be enough because it was not You can understand how to change a world if you don't know how to change a country, and you can't understand how to change a country if you don't know how to change a city. You can't know that unless you know how to change a neighborhood... - That's right. - Because so much of what has become our politics and our movements is virtual, which is great.

It is a tool, but it is not that person who is there. It's not you and me in a conversation. It's not me seeing what you're going through. It's not me experiencing what it's like to have broken glass under that little boy's feet where there should be a playground, or to get off and see trash floating in a river where all the fish are dead and the fishermen have been taken. You have to know that, so our thinking, okay, we have to have a place, and our place had to be the place where I grew up and where Michelle was born and raised and where our babies were born and where we got married. right down the street, and where I taught law school and Michelle was a dean and where I ran my first campaign.

So this was going to be the place, and we joked about it a little bit as if it were the mothership, but another way to think about it is that we want this to be a university for activism and social change and a gathering place for re - imagining how we will solve the problems your generation will face, and connect satellites, nodes and branches around the world, but this will be the heartbeat. This will be the beacon from which we send a signal that the values ​​we believe in are shared, that they are strong and can overcome those who would try to undermine them, and that we can make progress.

And the best thing about Chicago and the South Side of Chicago in particular is that same hunger for change and hope and progress that exists in communities and neighborhoods around the world, that same hunger exists here and the same barriers that exist around the world. . Greedy people or powerful people abusing their power or neglecting places because they're not historically populated by people that the people in power care about, or this is a laboratory for us to make those changes. - That's how it is. - And as I indicated before, we can also use the center as a driver and example of the types of changes that Awah and others were talking about in terms of creating economic opportunities and jobs, and transforming that landscape and connecting it to others. places, it becomes, we're not just talking about change.

We actually have a concrete manifestation of it, so that's our goal, and our hope is, most importantly, that this becomes the center around which people like Samira and DeAndre and you, Mimi and Awah, who, As you have 1,000, a million counterparts around the world. - That's how it is. - They may not be as far along on their journey as you, but they feel what you feel, and our hope is that over time, what starts with 1,000 will grow to 10,000, grow to 100,000, grow to a million young people who are connected and know each other and have a place that they can always use as a base for the work that they are doing, and if they get into trouble in their country, suddenly they have an activist network of millions of peers who are I'm going to say, "Hey, what's going on there?" And if they need to help publicize an issue as important as human trafficking, suddenly we're bringing everyone together. (mumbling) That's the goal.

Plus, we'll have some really good concerts here (audience laughs) and, you know, some pretty fun parks because I said before, if you're looking for something easy, you've come to the wrong peak, some of these things too. It has to be fun. Michelle reminded me of that often, and she still makes fun of me by saying, oh, if it's funny or tastes good, he doesn't want it (audience laughs), which is a little cruel, but there's a bit of truth in it. . . There have been times in my life where I feel like I have to take myself very seriously and try hard, and she helped me relax a little, and since she has done so much for me, maybe that's a nice good sign.

We should? - Let's do it. - Hello, Michelle Obama, how about you come on stage? (audience cheering and applauding) (upbeat instrumental music) Oh, did we catch her? Ah, here she is. Did you meet everyone? - Hello, (mumbling) I'm Mimi. Nice to meet you. - Hello. - Hey. (mumbling) - So I had to bring Michelle on stage just because everyone wanted to see her again (audience laughing), but also because we wanted to take this opportunity to thank them. Firstly, how smooth was Yara as a moderator? - Excellent. - Let's give him a big round of applause. (audience cheering and applauding) How notable were the members of our conversation? (Audience applauding and cheering) They were exceptional.

To all of you who have taken the time to be a part of this, to those who were on other panels, who flew in, we didn't pay, so you're just doing it out of the goodness of your heart. . To those who helped organize the event, to all the volunteers and young people who helped transport people, made sure badges were handed out and set everything up, we are so grateful. This is always a team effort and collaboration, and you made us proud once again, and to the city of Chicago and the South Side of Chicago, I just want to say thank you for embracing us once again.

Our hope is that you are as excited and enthusiastic about this vision we have for the Presidential Center as Michelle and I have been, and we look forward to continuing to provide opportunities to young people in this particular community, but also around the world. to the world to reach its full potential and, as a result, help lift this world, so you have been wonderful. Thank you so much. God bless you. I appreciate you. Great job.