The White House Blog: The First Lady

First Lady Michelle Obama Surprises White House Visitors

This morning, First Lady Michelle Obama surprised a group of visitors during a public White House tour. People from all over the country—families, students in town as part of the Junior Statesmen of America program, a group of nurses who work with veterans, and many others—entered the Blue Room expecting a glimpse of its artwork and furniture, only to be greeted by a smiling First Lady and Bo, the Obama family pup.

Reactions ranged from shock, to excitement, to just plain overwhelmed. Watch a video of the whole thing below.

President Obama Awards the 2011 National Medals of Arts and Humanities at the White House

President Barack Obama awards Robert Darnton, author and librarian, the National Humanities Medal for his determination to make knowledge accessible to everyone. President Obama awarded the 2011 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 13, 2012. 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The 2011 honorees of the National Medals of Arts and Humanities were at the White House today for an event that President Obama said he and First Lady Michelle Obama look forward to every single year. "It's a moment when America has a chance to pay tribute to extraordinary men and women who have excelled in the arts and the humanities, and who, along the way, have left an indelible mark on American culture," the President said before the ceremony in the East Room.

Today's honorees represented the full spectrum of the arts and humanities, and included actors, poets, authors, singers, philosophers, sculptors, curators, musicians, historians and even an economist. President Obama praised the group for their contributions to the arts, and to American society:

You create new possibilities for all of us. And that's a special trait.  And it assigns you a special task.  Because in moments of calm, as in moments of crisis; in times of triumph, as in times of tragedy:  you help guide our growth as a people.  The true power of the arts and the humanities is that you speak to everyone.  There is not one of us here who hasn’t had their beliefs challenged by a writer’s eloquence; or their knowledge deepened by a historian’s insights; or their sagging spirits lifted by a singer’s voice.  Those are some of the most endearing and memorable moments in our lives.

Equal to the impact you have on each of us every day as individuals is the impact you have on us as a society.  And we are told we're divided as a people, and then suddenly the arts have this power to bring us together and speak to our common condition.

First Lady Michelle Obama Is on the Road with Let's Move

First Lady Michelle Obama dances with students at the event highlighting Iowa’s Healthiest State Initiative during her tour celebrating the second anniversary of Let’s Move!, at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa, Feb. 9, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Ed note: this has been cross-posted from Let's Move!

To celebrate the second anniversary of Let's Move!, First Lady Michelle Obama is on a three day, four state tour, visiting people across the country whose lives have been impacted by her signature initiative.

First stop was Des Moines, Iowa where more than 14,000 students gathered to join Governor Terry Branstad as he declared February 9, 2012  Let's Move! Day in Iowa. The energy in the Wells Fargo Arena was electric, as Olympians Michelle Kwan and Shawn Johnson talked to the crowd of students waving "Let's Get Moving" signs about how eating healthy had helped them achieve their dreams. 

We could have had this party anywhere in the country, right? We could have gone anywhere, but there is a reason why we wanted to come here to Iowa to be with all of you. And that’s because I am so proud of what you all are doing to make Iowa the healthiest state in this country by 2016.

I am proud that you guys are starting community gardens, that you’re eating your fruits and vegetables.  I’m proud that you guys are walking to school instead of taking the bus.  I’m proud that you’re working hard to get that 60 minutes of activity a day, every day.  I’m also proud of your government, and businesses like Hy-Vee, and community leaders across the state who are all coming together to help you guys get healthy, to keep moving. 

This is exactly what "Let’s Move" is all about.  We want every single state in this country to do exactly what Iowa is doing. 

Michelle Obama Talks About Being a Mentor

First Lady Michelle Obama drops by the Girls Mentoring November activity in room 430 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Nov. 29, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)

February is Black History Month, and his year's theme, "Black Women in American Culture and History," honors African American women and the many roles they’ve played in the shaping of our nation.  

And in an interview with More magazine, First Lady Michelle Obama talks candidly about one of the roles that matters most to her, one that has been a part of her life since she was in high school, one that can have a crucial influence in shaping the next generation of American women and one she urges others to embrace: Mentor.

Mrs. Obama discusses the impact mentors have had in her life, and also what being a mentor has meant to her (one of the first people she mentored as a lawyer in Chicago was a fellow graduate of Harvard Law School named Barack Obama: “I made sure that he met the partners that he was working with; I had to take him out to lunch a couple of times” she tells the magazine).

And for the first time, the First Lady discusses a program she launched shortly after moving into the White House, a mentoring program she designed “to open a secret door for others that hadn’t been opened for me,” by pairing disadvantaged girls with some of the powerful women in the land. She tells the magazine:

“I wanted [the students] to experience this notion that if you can walk [through] the doors of the White House once a month and sit down with the first lady and her chief of staff and some other senior officials, and they’re talking to you and you get used to hearing your voice in the space, then it becomes not a big deal.”

And so her program pairs teenage girls with “this wonderful array of women who come from different backgrounds,” she says. “They’re senior leaders in President Obama’s administration, and they all have a story, right? They all have a set of challenges and struggles.” Those stories, Obama believes, are best told in person, over time, creating the kind of enduring bond the social media generation sorely lacks. “Even though our children are connecting in ways we never imagined,” she told a national summit on mentoring not long ago, “you’ve got an entire generation of young people truly in desperate need of a friend. Someone they can trust, an example they can follow.”