Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, dies at 86

Family praised ‘extraordinary gift of her life’

Marian Robinson, the mother of Michelle Obama, has died at the age of 86.

Her death was confirmed in moving statements by the former first lady and former president, Barack Obama.

“My mom Marian Robinson was my rock, always there for whatever I needed,” Michelle Obama wrote on X on Friday. “She was the same steady backstop for our entire family, and we are heartbroken to share she passed away today.”

Barack Obama also wrote: “There was and will be only one Marian Robinson. In our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life. And we will spend the rest of ours trying to live up to her example.”

Marian Robinson arrives for a ceremony unveiling President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s White House portraits September of 2022 (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

She passed “peacefully” on Friday morning, according to family members.

Marian Lois Shields Robinson was born in 1937, one of seven children raised in a “tiny upstairs apartment on the red-lined South Side of Chicago,” family members wrote in a statement, posted to Medium. The statement came from Barack and Michelle Obama, Craig and Kelly Robinson, and their children.

The family described how Robinson watched her parents face the challenges of racial segregation. Her father, Purnell Shields, was unable to join a union or work for certain construction firms because of the color of his skin.

Marian, who studied to be a teacher and later worked as a secretary before becoming a homemaker, married Fraser Robinson and had two children, Craig and Michelle.

Michelle Obama, in a recent Mother’s Day message, recalled her mother as a strong advocate for education, frequently taking the children to the library and encouraging them to learn how to read at a young age. Craig and Michelle would both attend Princeton University. Mrs Obama also received a law degree from Harvard.

The family described Robinson as a steadfast source of support and encouragement, including when Michelle “married a guy crazy enough to go into politics.”

Marian Robinson joined the Obamas to live in the White House but tended to avoid the spotlight, her family said (Getty Images)

“At every step, as our families went down paths none of us could have predicted, she remained our refuge from the storm, keeping our feet on solid ground,” the family wrote in their statement.

“On Election Night in 2008, when the news broke that Barack would soon shoulder the weight of the world, she was there, holding his hand.”

In hear early 70s, widowed and living in Chicago, Robinson joined the Obamas when they moved into the White House and lived with them through the end of Barack Obama’s second term in 2016, though Robinson was reluctant to step into the political limelight.

Marian Robinson on the White House lawn (AFP)

“I flat out begged her,” Michelle Obama wrote in her book,The Light We Carry. “I’d enlisted Craig to further twist her arm... She steadied us all.”

Craig later wrote that he argued the move would be a chance to try something new, something Marian Robinson always encouraged for her children.

In a foreward to Craig Robinson’s memoir, Marian herself wrote: “There were many good and valid reasons that Michelle raised with me [about going to Washington], not the least of which was the opportunity to continue spending time with my granddaughters, Malia and Sasha, and to assist in giving them a sense of normalcy that is a priority for both of their parents, as has been from the time Barack began his political career.”

At the White House, Robinson prefered to spend time with Malia and Sasha, helping out around the house, or chatting with the ushers and butlers who staffed the presidential residence, the family statement explained.

“The only guest she made a point of asking to meet was the Pope,” the family wrote.

Robinson would occasionally sneak out of the White House to buy greeting cards, and would downplay it when people asked if she was related to the first family, telling them, “Oh, I get that a lot.”

She also liked to make visits to take in shows from the president’s box at the Kennedy Center.

Prior to the election of Barack Obama, she had never traveled outside the US.

Once living in the White House, she frequently joined the Obamas on international trips, visiting countries like France, Russia, Italy and Ghana in 2009, as well as tagging along for visits to South Africa and Botswana in 2011 and China in 2014.

Barack Obama and Marian Robinson arrive on June 30, 2013 for a tour of Robben Island where where South-African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela was once jailed. (AFP via Getty Images)

Prior to her death, the Obamas announced on that they would name an exhibit in the Obama Presidential Center Museum, “Opening the White House,” after Robinson.

Notable figures who crossed paths with Robinson also expressed their condolences.

Tennis champion and LGBT+ pioneer Billie Jean King expressed her “deepest condolences”, recalling a happy time she had spent with Ms Robinson during the US Open tennis competition in 2013.

Viola Davis, the actress and film producer known for her starring roles in 2011’s The Help and the ABC TV show How to Get Away With Murder, wrote on Instagram: “What a quiet, powerful force you were.

The Obamas and Robinsons wrote in their statement that they were heartened to think Marian had rejoined her husband Fraser, a pump operator for the Chicago Water Department, who died in 1991.

“We are comforted by the understanding that she has returned to the embrace of her loving Fraser, that she’s pulled up her TV tray next to his recliner, that they’re clinking their highball glasses as she’s catching him up with the stories about this wild, beautiful ride,” they wrote.

“She’s missed him so.”