A Rare 2001 Interview With Future President Barack Obama

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CREDIT:

Video: The History Makers
Guest: Barack Hussein Obama II

DESCRIPTION:

Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States.

His story is the American story of values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

WhiteHouse.Gov Link: https://bit.ly/2thgXOc

His story also reveals the need for fathers in home.

In a 2008 speech delivered on Father’s Day at a church on Chicago’s South Side, Barack Obama said: "... too many black fathers are missing from too many lives and too many homes ... They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. We know the statistics, that children who grow up without a father are five (5) times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine (9) times more likely to drop out of schools and twenty (20) times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.”

In 2016, at a poverty summit, Barack Obama said: "I am a Black man who grew up without a father and I know the cost that I paid for that.”

Barack Obama understood the importance of engaged Fathers in the home. And he encouraged Black Fathers to step up and lovingly embrace their sons and daughters.

This is a message, I wholeheartedly agree with.

The social and economic problems that plague Black communities in particular (and urban areas in general) largely derive from the breakdown of the family. Poverty exists disproportionately within broken Black families and single-parent homes; the incidence of single-parent households in Black communities grew from 20% in 1960 to 70% in 2016.

I believe that the family structure is vital to preserving society must be restored within Black communities if any progress is to be hoped for.