MahoganyBooks’ Very Smart Brothas book club got the visit of a lifetime when former President Barack Obama surprised them during their late January meeting.
The group collectively gasped in delightful shock when the moderators for the meeting unveiled the dignitary after a brief introduction discussing Obama’s bestselling book, A Promised Land. The Very Smart Brothas club had no inkling that the auspicious author would show himself.
“They had scheduled somebody else, but they couldn’t make it, so I had to fill in,” Obama joked, eliciting laughter while others were still wide-eyed from surprise.
Though the meeting took place on Jan. 26, 2021, MahoganyBooks waited until the venerated 44th president posted the it onto his social media portals on Tuesday, Feb. 02. At that point, they placed the meeting on their YouTube channel.
Obama, 59, told the group that he wanted to visit the book club in order to “support our outstanding African-American independent bookstores.”
Additionally, Obama said, “I also just wanted to see who the brothers were who named themselves ‘The Very Smart Brothas book club,’ ” Obama joked, eliciting laughter from the book crew.
Of course, one of the earliest questions revolved around former first lady Michelle Obama’s spectacular monochrome ensemble during the inauguration, which became an instant classic and went viral worldwide.
“I don’t know what it is about y’all, with Michelle and her belts,” he said. “I asked Michelle about it at dinner the other night. I said, ‘Listen baby, you are gorgeous. You know, I understand completely why you are a fashion icon.’ But, I said, ‘Was your hair different? ‘Cause it didn’t look that different.’ ”
“Anyway, so I don’t have an answer other than just knowing she looks good and looks better than me,” he continued. “I understand that.”
From there, the festive mood quickly turned somber as Very Smart Brothas club and Obama broached topics that included police brutality, the pandemic and the tumultuous 2020. One member asked how he retained the spirit of optimism during the direst times of his presidency.
“The fact that I tend to take the long view on things, and not the short term … the trick is to be able to have that kind of long-term perspective but still feel the urgency of now, as Dr. King wrote about,” Obama said.
“When you see a George Floyd or an Eric Garner [who were killed in police custody], that’s terrible. That should make you angry. You can’t just kind of say, ‘Well, it’ll take time.’ You have to feel pressed now and angry now or sad now, right? Trying to keep those two things in mind at the same time I think is the biggest trick to not just being president but just being a functioning Black person in America.”
Flip the page to view the Very Smart Brothas book club meeting in its entirety.
