It was a tale of two Americas. In Las Vegas the casinos were humming with a hell-yes tide that was about to sweep the manic Donald Trump to his most pumped-up victory yet. In Washington DC, civilisation still existed. In the week Trump’s xenophobic bid to be the Republican presidential candidate began to look unstoppable, the man whose Americanness he has questioned was meeting 106-year-old Virginia McLaurin. In Pete Souza’s official White House photograph of their get-together, President Barack Obama cracks a delicious smile as the first lady dances with McLaurin, who was invited to visit the White House in recognition of community work she has done for decades in the US capital. The meeting was also a celebration of Black History Month – and Souza’s picture manages to be both intimate and historic. Here are three African Americans in the White House. The room they are in – the Blue Room – is opulently decorated with gold stars, Empire-style furniture, and a portrait of some grand national father who holds a white handkerchief in his white hand.
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Lovely series of behind-the-scenes pics of Barack Obama by @petesouza https://t.co/FIGFhxWMWT pic.twitter.com/IzOnDaGKvW
— Tom Standage (@tomstandage) May 29, 2016
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This is just one in a stream of vividly human and often funny photographs – released not just through White House press office, but on Flickr and Instagram – in which Souza has documented moments of the Obama administration that will never be forgotten. These photographs are precious historical documents. Critics from left and right blame the two-term presidency of this evidently intelligent and decent man for everything from the failure to close Guantánamo Bay (he’s still trying) to a continuing economic malaise that has fuelled what is shaping up to be the most extremist presidential election since 1860. Yet Souza’s photographs tell a different story – and the one that matters. Obama accomplished the impossible and made the White House an African American home for eight years…continued”
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Pete Souza on what it’s like to follow President Obama around every single day… #newsnight https://t.co/RcAMvmd23a
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) June 9, 2016
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“I’ll probably end up taking, at the end of 8 years, 2 million photographs” #newsnight https://t.co/6Wbz5HUhMN
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) June 9, 2016
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The Obama Diary 
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