A note from Barack

 As I recount in my book, A Promised Land, my mother, Ann Dunham, was strong, smart, and marched to her own beat. For her, the world offered endless opportunities for moral instruction. My sister Maya and I got early lessons about the struggle for civil rights, the impact of poverty on people around the world, and the importance of respecting other cultures and considering other points of view. My mother believed that power came not from putting people down but rather through lifting them up. And she was always certain that in the face of injustice and humanity’s more primal impulses, logic and progress would always prevail. “The world is complicated, Bar,” she used to say. “That’s why it’s interesting.”