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Obama writes in her book and elaborates to Ellen DeGeneres about how she and daughter Malia Obama celebrated national marriage equality outside the White House with the crowd.
While on a tour for her memoir Becoming, First Lady Michelle Obama revealed that she and daughter Malia Obama left the White House on the night on 2015 that the Supreme Court ruled for marriage equality and snuck outside near the crowd to be a part of the celebration. She spoke to Ellen DeGeneres about the passage in her book that covers the momentous event.
"Marriage equality had passed. We're in the White House and there's so much bulletproof glass that you don't hear what's going on outside," Obama told DeGeneres. "We knew that there was celebration happening, but we didn't realize that thousands of people were gathering in front of the White House to celebrate."
Obama told DeGeneres that it became increasingly more difficult for her to remain inside knowing there was a full-on celebration of LGBTQ equality happening so close to her.
"My staff was calling, everybody was celebrating, and people were crying. And I thought, I want to be in that. I want to go outside and I want to be a part of that celebration,"Obama said.
After attempting to rouse President Barack Obama from his work and younger daughter Sasha Obama from generally being a teenager to join her outside, Obama and Malia decided they were going to venture out together.
"We were going on an adventure -- outside, where people were gathered -- and we weren't going to ask anyone's permission," Obama writes in Becoming. "Malia and I were now on a crusade. We weren't going to relinquish our goal. We were going to get ourselves outside."
Obama continues in the book that on June 26, 2015, the day the Supreme Court declared marriage equality the law of the land, that she Malia encountered some difficulty in getting the Secret Service to rally behind the idea. Eventually, they made it to the crowd outside the White House, which was lit up in rainbow colors:
"We made our way down a marble staircase and over red carpets, around the busts of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and past the kitchen until suddenly we were outdoors. The humid summer air hit our faces. I could see fireflies blinking on the lawn.
"And there it was, the hum of the public, people whooping and celebrating outside the iron gates. It had taken us 10 minutes to get out of our own home, but we'd done it. We were outside, standing on a patch of lawn off to one side, out of sight of the public but with a beautiful, close-up view of the White House, lit up in pride."
Speaking with DeGeneres, Obama elaborated on the "mother-daughter" moment she and Malia experienced.
"We took it in. I held her tight," Obama said. "My feeling was, We are moving forward. Change is happening."
