Michelle Obama by David Colbert

was running a children's hospital. As a child she lived in London before the family moved back to Chicago. Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all broke barriers for African Americans. Jarrett had become a lawyer and then ahd devoted herself to public service. Michelle could see that Jarrett didn't believe in old-style Chicago politics.
    Jarrett could also see that Michelle would be a huge help to the city. "I offered her a job at the end of the interview," Jarrett remembered, "which was totally inappropriate since it was the mayor's decision. She was so confident and committed and extremely open."
    Michelle didn't accept right away. Because Barack shared her doubts about city hall, she asked Jarrett to meet with Barack. Jarrett convinced him. In fact, she later became one of his closest advisers.
    Michelle was put in charge of simplifying and solving any problems that businesses and citizens were having with city hall. There was a lot less money than she'd been earning at Sidley, but there was more satisfaction. She then became assistant commissioner of planning and development. That job let her focus on solving the problems with Chicago neighborhoods that had led to conflict in the city when she was growing up.
"SHE BUILT IT TO LAST"
    About a year and a half after joining the mayor's office, Michelle got another opportunity. A charity called Public Allies, which had been founded the year before in Washington, D.C., had chosen Chicago as the location of its second office. (It now has almost twenty.) With a combination of volunteer work and education, Public Allies develops young people who want to become community service leaders. The Washington staff had heard of Barack's reputation as a community organizer and wanted him to run the Chicago office. He told them the person they really needed was Michelle. They were soon happy he did.
    Paul Schmitz, chief executive officer of Public Allies, remembered, "At a time when the average age of our staff was twenty-three, she was like drafting Brett Favre for the Packers," Schmitz told Jay Newton-Small of TIME. "Michelle was twenty-nine when we hired her. She had a law degree from Harvard, had worked for the mayor, for a corporate law firm. Comparatively, I'd worked a telemarketing group. Frankly, we were surprised that she wanted to do it."
    Michelle recalled that it was a leap of faith. "It sounded risky and just out there," she told Richard Wolffe. "But for some reason it just spoke to me. This was the first time I said, 'This is what I say I care about. Right here. And I will have to run it.'" She got a new title, executive director, and another pay cut.
    It didn't take long for Michelle to stamp the office with her personal style. Vanessa Kirsch, a founder of Public Allies, remembered, "She had incredibly high expectations and was constantly asking questions, making sure we were using her time well. There were days when, even though she worked for me, I definitely felt like I worked for her."
    Nothing was done halfway. Barbara Pace-Moody, another community leader in Chicago, told reporter Lauren Collins she recalled meeting Michelle around this time when they were both volunteering for a program to mentor young women, before Michelle and Barack were married: "We had a big gala, and she and her sister-in-law took their own money and paid for the girls to get their hair done and set them up in a hotel downtown. I remember thinking, Who is this Michelle Robinson?"
    Michelle was tough enough to work in Cabrini-Green, a notorious housing project that some Chicago police officers refused to enter. She became the authority the young volunteers needed: "She let nothing slide," remembered José A. Rico, an illegal immigrant who had a fantasy about opening a high school for Latinos. Thanks in part to her help, he became a citizen, helped start a high school, and became its principal. She also helped many of the young people through their first close relationships with people