Barack Obama The Movement for Change

Examining in detail the origins of President Barack Obama's mission to change America, this biographical account is focused on his days as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago and his rise through the racially charged Chicago political scene. Obama's plan for change is put forth as the latest expression of a movement for justice: a movement that has swept forward with the collective energy of great leaders such as Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Harold WashingtonChicago's first black mayor and others who have bent the "arc of morality" towards justice. This examination of Obama's early years in Chicago explores how his life touched and was touched by a beleaguered and sinking community in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods and how his work with the residents of Chicago's Woodlawn and Altgeld Gardens communities has shaped how he thinks, how he works, and his vision for the American people. Stepping back from recent events, it becomes apparent that Obama's unlikely victory is not merely the story of a single, remarkable individual, it is a story of a movement and of the people who drove that movement forward and one that will cascade down the generations.

Anthony Painter is a freelance political commentator who has been published in numerous newspapers and periodicals. He was awarded the New Statesman prize for political writing in 2003.