O-ba-ma self…

Photo credit: Pete Souza courtesy of HBO 

“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”

-- Barack Hussein Obama

Jan. 20, 2009 is the greatest day in American history. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I watch as President Barack Obama, the first black U.S. President, prepares to post up in the Oval Office. Many of my close friends and colleagues all flock to Washington, D.C. I stayed in Atlanta; Hennessy, my signature drink, hosted an exclusive event at STATS, an upscale downtown sports bar, to unleash the commemorative V.S. 44 bottle - with open bar. I personally was in heaven. Shit, I thought it was the dopest way to celebrate the Obama saga – that is, until Thurs. Oct. 22, 2009.

Thanks to publicist Valerie Harris, I accept a last minute invitation to take part in an advanced screening (the third of nine nationwide) of By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, an upcoming HBO documentary set to air on Tues., Nov. 3. As I drive around the grounds of Atlanta’s Carter Presidential Center, a 37-acre complex founded by former President Jimmy and First Lady Rosalynn Carter in 1982, looking for a place to park, I couldn’t imagine the visual tour-de-force I would experience at the center’s Cecil B. Day Chapel.

Directed by extraordinary first time filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, who first meet around 2000 working on a documentary dealing with the New York public school system, the high definition documentary gives veracious, behind-the-scenes narratives of the Obama campaign over the course of the 19 months leading up to Obama’s victory. Rice is grateful; Sams, on the other hand, is exhilarated. “It’s hard to believe that it’s over,” Sams says to me prior to the screening. “But what I feel best about it is 20 years, 30 years, 40 years – I hope this will really stand the test of time. People will be able to use this as a historical document.”

Rice and Sams capture Obama on 180 hours worth of high definition film from May 11, 2006 to Jan. 28, 2009 but manage to have Sam Pollard edit the footage down to approximately two hours. Going from only two cameras to ending up with 12, By The People is produced by Academy Award nominee Edward Norton and his production company, Class 5 Films. After only screening about eight minutes of the film, Sheila Nevins, HBO’s award-winning Director of Documentary and Family Programming, immediately gets behind the film.

“It’s an honor working with them,” Rice believes. “That’s the dream of every documentary filmmaker. They’ve been great. They’ve really gotten behind it.”

Like many HBO-produced documentaries, By The People is a masterpiece: a contemporary artifact. Obama’s family and in-house political arsenal are the only members of his “entourage” present. We get to sit in on conference calls; speech edits; canvassing and even the President shooting hoops. This is some shit that Meet the Press; CNN’s Soledad O’Brien; Oprah or 60 Minutes can’t even fuck with.

We have the coolest President beyond measure: he daps up David Axelrod, his senior campaign advisor; yawns in his downtime (what little bit he has) and tells Jon Favreau, his chief speechwriter, that he wants his speeches to have some flavor. He gets a fresh fade at a South Side Chicago barbershop surrounded by video phones. He, along with First Lady Michelle, are so smooth, they convince people in wheelchairs to vote for him. Still, he’s not afraid to joke about paying off his Ivy League student loans and saving for his retirement. His late grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, says in a voiceover the President is “a normal boy who wanted to be a big time basketball player?”

How cool is this? Hell, I’m still trying to get over the brother holding down the Oval Office in my lifetime. As I hear another GA representative who was involved in the March on Washington in 1963 put it – it’s a dream come true. But don’t get it twisted.

Obama still has his haters, too! By The People features those who “don’t want a black man runnin’ the country” or “don’t think that America is ready.” The President is called a “terrorist.” One sequence features one campaign headquarters being spray painted with slurs and objects being thrown through the windows. It’s a lot to handle: the various news reels and talk shows questioning Obama’s credibility and political experience to the disappointing media poll speculations and his campaign losing key states. The controversies surrounding Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s comments are also highlighted. As Rice says, overcoming the odds should translate well in this film.

“We started out making a film about Obama’s story,” she says. “When he ran, it became a story about Obama; his campaign and how they were the underdogs. They didn’t listen to the naysayers; they really focused and believed in what they were doing. They kept their eyes on the prize and persevered. They showed that anything is possible.”

By The People reveals what it really takes to effectively carry out the political process – minus all of the mudslinging; kissing babies; shaking hands and controversial behavior. There are the people instrumental to Obama’s political success: campaign manager David Plouffe; White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; media consultant Jim Margolis and Iowa press secretary Tommy Vietor. A nine year-old boy is involved - canvassing via phone. Ronnie Cho, an Iowa-based, Korean American campaign manager who is the first in his family to attend college, talks to his mother everyday about the campaign from headquarters. He is shown crying after Obama’s win is confirmed.

I must admit. It’s great to see such changes because of one man. Sams, a Washington, D.C. native who admits she hadn’t participated in any political activities in years, was inspired once Rice asked her to be a part of making the film. “I was excited,” she says. “I had not done a political thing in a long, long time. What inspired me about [Barack] Obama was that he was reengaging people in the political process and was saying, ‘You’re in this democracy. Take charge of your life. Take some responsibility.’”

Rice, however, is still as blown away by her efforts. To think that her older brother’s death in the 9/11 attacks; watching Obama’s monumental 2004 Democratic National Convention address and reading Obama’s best-selling memoir, Dreams From My Father, not only hipped her to a great politician but a historic moment. She just hopes that she and Sams made an important contribution. “I don’t know if it’s sunk in yet,” she says. “Everyone just makes my stomach curve because this was such a huge opportunity. I don’t think we messed it up. I think we tried our best, and we did a good job.”

And indeed, Rice and Sams did just that. They bring forth a universal truth with By The People: The Election of Barack Obama; as long as you don’t give up on what you believe in, your dreams can become reality. Now our parents don’t have to keep giving us that “you can be whatever you wanna be when you grow up speech” anymore. Guess there is HOPE, huh?