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"This is Barack Obama, remember me?"

2022-05-27T17:02:02.864Z


13 years after a young boy grabbed Barack Obama's hair, the ex-president calls him to ask how he's doing. The boy is now a man and he tells how much the visit has shaped him.


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Jacob Philadelphia and Barack Obama in 2009: "Is Your Hair Like Mine?"

Photo: Pete Souza / picture alliance / dpa

This picture went around the world: Barack Obama bends down and a little boy grabs his head.

That was 13 years ago and the little boy who patted Obama's hair was named Jacob Philadelphia.

He is now 18 years old and will finish school this month.

Graduating from high school was worth calling Philadelphia and asking how he was doing after all these years and what he intends to do with his life.

"Are you Jacob?" Obama asks the young man.

“This is Barack Obama.

Do you remember me?"

The former president says he vividly remembers the day Jacob was in the Oval Office with his family.

Jacob's brother was very serious and asked questions about weapons systems and the budget process.

But Jacob would have wanted to know something completely different - namely whether Obama's hair was the same as his.

Obama told him at the time that he should just see for himself.

That's when the photo was taken by then-White House photographer Pete Souza.

The photo, titled "Hair like mine," hung in the White House for years.

In a video of the call that Pete Souza shared on Instagram, Jacob says he thought Obama was his father's boss for a long time.

Only later did he realize that Obama was a bit more powerful.

He was shy at the time, the Oval Office was so big.

"For me, the visit was a highlight of my life," says Philadelphia.

'It's very nice to see someone from the government.

Because when you see another black man at the top, you want to follow suit."

Obama says he's heard Philadelphia has gotten around a lot.

And Jacob Philadelphia reports that his father worked in the State Department and had to travel a lot.

It wasn't easy for the family, but he and his brother got to know many other children that way.

Philadelphia is now graduating from a school in Uganda and wants to study political science in Memphis.

Photographer Pete Souza said of the photo, "It was one of probably a thousand pictures I took that day." But that moment has become more meaningful over the years.

kha

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2022-05-27

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