history teacher

President Barack Obama views the Emancipation Proclamation with a small group of African American seniors, their grandchildren and some children from the Washington, D.C. area, in the Oval Office, Jan. 18, 2010. This copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, which is on loan from the Smithsonian Museum of American History, was hung on the wall of the Oval Office today and will be exhibited for six months, before being moved to the Lincoln Bedroom where the original Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

i'm barack obama and I approve this tweet

President Obama hits “send” on his first-ever Twitter post during a visit at the Red Cross Disaster Operations Center in Washington January 18, 2010.

paving the way

King said in an interview that this photograph was taken as he tried to explain to his daughter Yolanda why she could not go to Funtown, a whites-only amusement park in Atlanta. King claims to have been tongue-tied when speaking to her. “One of the most painful experiences I have ever faced was to see her tears when I told her Funtown was closed to colored children, for I realized the first dark cloud of inferiority had floated into her little mental sky.” Time Magazine

red cross

President Obama talks with Red Cross employees about relief operations for earthquake victims in Haiti, from the Red Cross Disaster Operations Center in Washington January 18, 2010.

living history

President Barack Obama talks with Mable Harvey, 102 from Washington, DC. , after a conversation with a small group of African American seniors and their grandchildren on the legacy of the civil rights movement in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington Monday, Jan. 18, 2010.

……Obama made special note of two guests. “Mr. Joseph Harvey is 105, and Ms. Mabel Harvey here is the spry young one at 102,” Obama said. “And Ms. Harvey just now was whispering in my ear, as you guys were walking in, that this must be the Lord’s doing, because we’ve come a mighty long way.”

More

"man, you look sooooo like the president!!"

President Obama serves lunch to people at So That Others Might Eat, a social services organization, in Washington Monday, Jan. 18, 2010.

small world

A man wearing a t-shirt with an image of President Barack Obama is seen in a makeshift refugee camp in Port-au-Prince January 17, 2010.

The Loneliest Job

Gerard Dubois for TIME

for absent friends

President Barack Obama is hugged by Victoria Kennedy at a campaign rally for Attorney General Martha Coakley, candidate for the U.S. Senate, at Northeastern University in Boston January 17, 2010.