Sasha and Malia Obama Participated in Black Lives Matter Protests Over the Summer, According to Their Dad

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Barack Obama continues to spill tea about his life in his book tour for his recently-released memoir, “A Promised Land”. Previously, the former president revealed that he and Michelle Obama struggled with “tension” in their marriage due to the stresses of the White House. Now, Obama is opening up about his daughters.

In an interview with People magazine, Obama revealed that Sasha and Malia Obama (19 and 22) participated in Black Lives Matter protests over the summer.

“I didn’t have to give them a lot of advice because they had a very clear sense of what was right and what was wrong and [of] their own agency and the power of their voice and the need to participate,” Obama said. “Malia and Sasha found their own ways to get involved with the demonstrations and activism that you saw with young people this summer, without any prompting from Michelle and myself, on their own initiative.”

Obama went on to say that his daughters didn’t join in on the protests for publicity’s sake, but actually quite the contrary. “They didn’t do it in a way where they were looking for limelight. They were very much in organizer mode.”

And indeed, there were no photos or videos of either of the Obama girls protesting, so it appears that their desire to mobilize was prompted by purely altruistic reasons.

Obama reiterated that it was completely Sasha and Malia’s ideas to protest.

“They didn’t need to be encouraged,” he said. “Their attitude was: we’ve seen something wrong and we want to fix it, and we think we can fix it. And we understand that it’s not gonna take just a day or a week or one march to fix it. But we’re in it for the long haul.”

Obama went on to talk about how impressed he is about how the younger generations are so involved with activism–especially compared to when he was younger, when he and his peers were more focused on “finances and the perks of a job”.

“And these kids are really focused on: how can I do something that I find meaningful, that resonates with my values and my ideals?” he said. “And that I think is an encouraging sign for the country.”

Since the Obama family left the White House in 2017, both Sasha and Malia have remained relatively under the radar.

Both girls attended college after graduating from high school. Malia Obama took a gap year before deciding on Harvard University. She is set to graduate in 2021. Departing from her family of Ivy League attendees, Sasha Obama landed on the University of Michigan for her undergrad, where she is still attending.

We hope the Obama girls continue to have private and peaceful lives and have the opportunity to actively be involved in the issues that are closest to their hearts.