Experience the powerful story of former First Lady of the United States and follow Michelle Obama's journey from the working-class South Side of Chicago to the White House. She is a modern American icon who shares her inspiring message of promoting education, advocating for children, and supporting military families. Mrs. Obama continues to demonstrate compassion, vitality, and optimism of unifying people from all walks and is in constant Forward Motion.

Discuss the film with historian Leah Wright Rigueur. Rigueur is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. A historian by training, her research interests include 20th Century United States political and social history, and modern African American history and emphasizes race, civil rights, political ideology, the American two-party system and the presidency.

At the Kennedy School, she teaches courses on race, riot and backlash in the United States, the Civil Rights Movement, race and policy in Modern America. She also leads Race and American Politics, a multidisciplinary series of seminars and round tables, co-sponsored by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and the Malcolm Weiner Center for Social Policy and dedicated to the most pressing political and social issues related to race in the United States.

Her first book, The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power (Princeton University Press) was published in 2015. Her current book project, Mourning in America: Black Men in a White House, explores the intersection of race, class, and politics in the presidential administration of Ronald Reagan.

This event is presented in partnership with Stark Library.