POLITICO: On Saturday, Obama will not only attend the march, he will lead it, along with his wife, Michelle, and both his daughters. In contrast to his first term when many black leaders were frustrated by how hard he worked to avoid inflaming racial tensions, in his second term he has more publicly embraced his historic position as American’s first black president.
Marching in Selma isn’t the only step he’s taking. He’s made sentencing reform a fourth quarter priority, an issue that is a top priority for African Americans and that he thinks he might be a rare chance for Republican support, and in the months since Ferguson, he’s added police misconduct to his agenda as well. On the side, he’s started an initiative called My Brother’s Keeper to help mentor young black men, which aides say will also be a major focus of his post-presidency…
Obama first marched in Selma at the annual commemoration in 2007. Even then, a few weeks after he’d announced his White House run, electing a black president still seemed like a longshot, but the atmosphere around questions of race seemed better overall… (more)
