Michelle Obama by David Colbert Read Free Book Online Page A

getting old. But Michelle doesn't care. Everything still seems new to her.
    She's sitting on the edge of her bed and talking when her other roommate arrives. The woman seems a little out of breath from carrying two suitcases up the four flights of stairs. Her name's Catherine Rodrigue. She's from New Orleans. While she settles in, Michelle learns about her: She's an athlete, like Craig. Captain of the basketball and volleyball teams at school. Michelle notices from a photo that Catherine was homecoming queen too. As they talk, Michelle starts to sense something familiar about her: Like Michelle, she had to work hard to get here. She was raised by a single mother who took a job at a good school so Catherine, her only child, could attend it. Then her mother, who taught science, tutored Catherine to keep her ahead of her schoolwork.
    Catherine's mother, who drove her to Princeton, is waiting at a small hotel near the campus. She and a friend who helped with the driving are going to take Catherine to dinner. Catherine and Michelle say their goodbyes. Not long afterward Michelle finds Craig and they call their parents. Fraser and Marian are only half-listening to the hundred new details of Michelle's life, which are coming out too fast to understand. They just want to hear that Michelle's happy. She is.
    But at the hotel where Catherine's mother is staying, the mood is different. Catherine's mother only cares about one detail, and she's furious. Catherine's roommate is
black
? No way. Catherine has to move immediately.
    She's so mad she calls her own mother, Catherine's grandmother. Her advice: "Take Catherine out of school right now and bring her home." Catherine's mother spends the evening calling the Princeton alumni back in New Orleans who had helped Catherine apply to the college to get their help.
    Catherine already likes Michelle. She thinks Michelle is funny and interesting. But even while they were talking back in the room Catherine expected this problem. Although she's a little embarrassed by her mother's anger, she isn't putting up a fight. She and her mother are close. She doesn't want her mother to be unhappy. She's also used to this behavior.
    The next morning her mother enters the housing office like a tank. She doesn't even try to hide her reasons for wanting them to move Catherine. "Catherine is from the South," she told them. "We aren't used to living with black people." Her one effort to be polite is to use the word "black." Normally she uses a word that starts with the letter
n
.
    She can't be talked out of her demand. The housing office says it will take some time, but it's possible. Before she leaves, she makes sure the forms are completed. As soon as she gets back to New Orleans, she calls the housing office to push them. She calls again and again over the next months.
"TEMPER AND TRADITION"
    To Catherine's credit, Michelle didn't know about the problem at the time. She wouldn't learn until the 2008 campaign, when Catherine and her mother told the story to the press. By then, both Catherine and her mother had moved on from their old ideas. They were embarrassed, and they were brave enough to be honest about what Catherine said was "her secret shame" at Princeton.
    But Catherine and Michelle didn't become close, either. Michelle later wondered to Sally Jacobs of the
Boston Globe
if racism, even if it was just from other members of Catherine's family, might have been the reason. "Sometimes that's the thing you sense, that there's something there, but it's often unspoken."
    Catherine did eventually move out. Her mother's efforts led to the offer of a new room that happened to be larger. Catherine said later that she didn't have any bad feelings towards Michelle, she just wanted the extra space. However, there was no effort to remain friends. They didn't even speak when they passed each other on campus, Catherine told the
Globe.
    At the time the story came out, opponents of Barack were saying that Michelle