Becoming: Chapter 24 Summary & Analysis

In the spring of 2015, sixteen-year-old Malia attends her junior prom. Her date “gamely” drives up to the South Lawn and shakes Michelle and Barack’s hand. They take a few pictures before heading off to dinner and the dance. Michelle takes comfort in the fact that Malia’s security detail will remain on duty throughout the night. Michelle usually tries not to check in with the agents on Malia and Sasha’s whereabouts, wanting to make sure that the girls trust their agents. She knows her girls are responsible—that they’ve had to learn to be, because their mistakes would make headlines.

Sasha and Malia come of age in a unique time. The iPhone was released four months before Barack announced his candidacy for president. A billion of them are sold by the end of his second term. And so, Sasha and Malia have to contend with the public snapping pictures of them or requesting selfies. Barack and Michelle try to keep them out of sight, and the Secret Service dresses less conspicuously with the girls to better blend in with the crowd.

As Barack’s second term winds down, Michelle starts to take stock of how drastically her life has been altered. She thinks about her first kiss with Barack after ice cream, to giving up her job at her law firm, to  the church basement in Roseland where Barack had envisioned “the world as it should be.”

Michelle also thinks about the country’s progress: fewer servicemembers overseas, childhood obesity rates leveling off, the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold key parts of the Affordable Care Act, the economy racking up five years of continued growth. But still, America’s progress is not always so clear. Bin Laden is gone, but ISIS has arrived; Congress has not passed a single gun-control measure; there are a series of incidents involving unarmed black men being shot by police. The last example is evidence of something “pernicious and unchanging in America” despite the fact that when Barack was first elected, commentators declared that the country was entering a “postracial era.”

Late in June 2015, Barack and Michelle go to Charleston, South Carolina, to sit with a grieving community where nine people were killed in a racially motivated shooting at an African Methodist Episcopal church. The victims, all African Americans, had invited a young white man to their bible study group, and he sat with them for a while before standing up and shooting them. At the funeral, Barack delivers a moving eulogy before leading the congregation in a rendition of “Amazing Grace”—a “simple invocation of hope.”

The same day as this funeral service, the Supreme Court issues a landmark decision affirming that same-sex couples have the right to marry in all fifty states. Many Americans are overjoyed by this news, and when Barack and Michelle return home, they see the White House illuminated in the colors of the rainbow flag. Hundreds of people have gathered to see the lights, and Michelle and Malia flout protocols to go outside and see the lights and the celebration.

By the fall of 2015, the next presidential campaign has already begun. The Republican side is crowded, while the Democrats are essentially choosing between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Donald Trump announces his candidacy early in the summer, standing inside Trump Tower and calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and the people running the country “losers.” Michelle thinks he only wants attention; nothing in how he conducts himself suggests he is serious about governing.

Michelle doesn’t follow the campaign very closely, instead working on her fourth initiative, Let Girls Learn, which focuses on helping girls around the world obtain better access to education. She met Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager and education activist who’d been brutally attacked by the Taliban, and she was horrified when 276 Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram, prompting Michelle to sub in for Barack in his weekly address to the nation and talk about the importance of protecting girls worldwide.

Barack leverages hundreds of millions of dollars from USAID and the Peace Corps, as well as the Departments of State, Labor, and Agriculture. They also lobby other countries’ governments to help fund programming for girls’ education. Michelle rallies the power of celebrities to raise the cause’s visibility, and Michelle sings on late-night host James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke” series. 

After Christmas 2015, the clock starts to tick on their final year in the White House. A “long series of ‘lasts’” begins. In the spring, Michelle gives a round of commencement speeches at schools that don’t normally land high-profile speakers. She tries to communicate that, as the great-great-granddaughter of a slave, and as someone who has been marginalized by race and gender, she is a testament to the idea that it is possible to overcome that kind of marginalization.

The last commencement Michelle attends that spring is for Malia, graduating from high school. Malia is about to go off on a gap year, then enroll at Harvard. Sasha is spending the summer on Martha’s Vineyard and will work her first job in a snack bar. She is proud of the whole family for almost finishing this crazy adventure. Michelle looks at Barack, tears in his eyes, and knows that he has sacrificed along the way, as well. Just as he starts having more free time, his daughters will begin to step away.

In late July, Michelle flies to the Democratic National Convention, this time giving a speech in support of Hillary Clinton, who now knows she will be running against Donald Trump. Michelle talks about how she trusts Hillary because she understands the demands of the presidency, has the temperament to lead, and because she is extremely qualified. Michelle also speaks out against bullying, giving her now-famous quote: “When they go low, we go high.”

Two months later, a tape surfaces of Donald Trump in 2005 bragging about sexually assaulting women, putting media outlets in a bind as to how to quote it without violating standards of decency. In the end, Michelle writes, “the standards of decency [are] simply lowered in order to make room for the candidate’s voice.” She is stunned by his words. She knows that women endure “entire lifetimes of these indignities—in the form of catcalls, groping, assault, and oppression.” In a speech, Michelle calls the comments “disgraceful” and “intolerable.”

On election night, Michelle is somewhat relieved to have no role to play in the evening, but as the results come in, she is filled with dread. Hillary Clinton wins nearly three million more votes than Donald Trump, but he captures the Electoral College thanks to “fewer than eighty thousand votes spread across Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.” She wishes that more people had turned out, and she wonders why so many women rejected an exceptionally qualified female candidate and chose a misogynist instead.

The next morning—a dreary, wet morning—Barack addresses the nation once more. He calls, as always, for unity, dignity, and respect. In the White House, many people are in tears. Michelle’s team is made up largely of women and minorities, and several from immigrant families. They feel vulnerable and exposed. Michelle tries to tell them that one election can’t wipe away eight years of change, and that it is important to “keep our feet pointed in the direction of progress.”

Michelle looks back at her family’s legacy in the White House. She wants to make sure that they have a lasting mark within the White House’s history. They redecorate the Old Family Dining Room, giving it a more modern look and opening it to the public for the first time. On the room’s north wall, they hang an abstract painting by Alma Thomas, the first work of art by a black woman to be added to the White House’s permanent collection.

Michelle’s most enduring mark is the garden. It has survived seven and a half years and produces roughly two thousand pounds of food annually. Now it has expanded to twenty-eight hundred square feet, more than double its original size. One fall afternoon, Michelle officially dedicates the garden, joined by supporters and advocates who’d helped their children’s health efforts over the years.

Michelle feels grateful for all of her team’s efforts, surrounded by so many people who had her back over the years. She has watched them blossom both professionally and personally. And together, they have gotten results: 45 million kids are eating healthier meals; Joining Forces helped persuade businesses to hire or train 1.5 million veterans; Barack and Michelle have leveraged billions of dollars to help girls around the world receive an education; in the U.S., her team has helped more young people go to college.

Over the course of his presidency, Barack had reversed the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression, brokered the Paris Agreement on climate change, brought tens of thousands of troops home, and led the effort to shut down Iran’s nuclear program. Twenty million more people have health insurance. And they made it through two terms in office without a major scandal.

During their time in the White House, Lin-Manuel Miranda finished his musical Hamilton—which Michelle calls “the best piece of art in any form that [she’d] ever encountered.” The musical is a celebration of America’s history and diversity, and she particularly appreciates it because it affirms that there is more than one way to be American, and more than one way to tell America’s story. Michelle had grown up with a disabled father in a failing neighborhood, but also had love and music and a good education—it depends on how she tells the story. Despite its bitter conflicts, she also sees the country’s resilience and progress, and knows that even more is possible for the next generation.