« Writing the biography of a black person who passed for white in 20th-century America adds an extra layer of difficulty to the detective work any biographer must undertake. This is especially true since Herriman seems never to have addressed his deception in his personal writings or confided his feelings about racial identity to family or friends.
For African Americans, Obama’s presidency had been largely defined by his reluctance to engage with the ways that racial discrimination was blunting the impact of his administration’s recovery efforts. »

As I see it, Mr. Obama is the only figure to ever give Dr. King a run for his money as Greatest Black Man in American history.

President Obama’s historic tenure ends as the nation celebrates what would have been Martin Luther King’s 88th birthday. As I see it, Mr. Obama is the only figure to ever give Dr. King a run for his money as Greatest Black Man in American history. More than a gentle rivalry for supremacy in the history books joins the two. They are tethered by death, too — if not by its actual occurrence, then by its looming possibility.

Michael Eric Dyson, “How Black America Saw Obama,” The New York Times, January 14, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/14/opinion/sunday/how-black-america-saw-obama.html.

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