These anecdotes show how grave the situation in Ida Mae’s neighborhood has become. When Obama visits her group, Ida Mae witnesses history once again—just like when she saw Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak in Chicago 30 years before. In fact, she runs into both Obama and King by just living her daily life. This suggests that experiences like hers are far more central to the U.S.’s politics and history than most people tend to think. Put differently, Wilkerson argues that Black stories like the Great Migration have long been left at the margins of American history, when they are actually central to it. This book was published in 2010, the second year of Obama’s presidency. So Obama’s visit also suggests that the Great Migration’s legacy of empowering Black Americans in the 20th century made an unmistakable impact on U.S. politics in the 21st century.