In meetings with young black men, Obama tries to leave a mark - The Washington Post: CHICAGO – Kerron Turner sat with a more than a dozen other teenagers in a classroom at Hyde Park Academy High School on this city’s troubled South Side, nervously settling in for an unusual meeting with the president of the United States.
They told their stories: Turner worried about the gangs he passes on his way home from school. Robert Scates had dropped out of high school and was working to catch up in time to graduate. Lazarus Daniels feared what would happen to his anger if he couldn’t play football anymore.
Eventually, it was President Obama’s turn to check in — to say how hewas feeling emotionally, physically, intellectually and spiritually.
Obama’s quiet visit a year agoto the “Becoming a Man” program for inner-city youth in Chicago, along with a follow-up meeting several months later, would test whether Obama could transform the symbolism of his presidency into something more personal, one young man at a time.
The meetings left a mark on the president, who has used them as
motivation for a forthcoming White House initiative on young men of color that he promised to launch in this year’s State of the Union address.
