#stuart a. rose manuscript archives and rare book library

[lostfunzones]

Olwyn Hughes reflected in a mirror as she takes a photograph of her brother Ted, the future poet laureate.  1963. (Photograph: Stuart A Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta)

[harvardfineartslib]

Black History Month is a time to celebrate the contributions of Black people in the nation’s history. The founder of Black History Month was Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950), known as the father of Black history and the second Black person to receive Ph.D. from Harvard University. While growing up on his family’s farm in Virginia, Woodson’s enslaved uncles taught him in a one-room schoolhouse. Before high school, he worked in coal mines alongside formerly enslaved men and Civil War veterans who were illiterate. Woodson came to understand the importance of education and the knowledge gained from Black people’s lived experiences, which should be both preserved and celebrated.

As a scholar and educator, Woodson wrote many influential books including “The Mis-Education of the Negro” published in 1933 and “African Heroes and Heroines” published in 1944. His critique of the American school system for the various forms of violence inflicted upon Black people and inequality to access is still very relevant. He also wrote on the rich history of Africa and African American life to educate teachers and the public about the myriad contributions of Black people.

Before Woodson created Negro History Week in 1926, many Black teachers were already celebrating the birthdays of various figures such as Frederick Douglass, who was born in February. Woodson offered an institutional structure with materials that could be disseminated across Black schools. The week was eventually expanded to a month-long celebration starting in 1976.

You can read more about Carter G. Woodson in the Harvard Gazette, in a recent interview with Jarvis Givens, assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Suzanne Young Murray Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

The image is the cover of “African Heroes and Heroines”, a part of FAL’s Digital Images and Slides Collection (DISC), a collection of images digitized from secondary sources for use in teaching and learning. FAL does not own the original artworks represented in this collection, but you can find more information at HOLLIS Images.

Cover for Carter Woodson's African Heroes and Heroines Author / Creator Jones, Lois Mailou, American and African American artist, 1905-1998 [artist] Production: Washington D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1939 Woodson, Carter Godwin, American historian, 1875-1950 Repository: Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia, United States HOLLIS number: 8001690410

[fisarmonical]

Professor smoking a tobacco pipe. Source: Emory University Office of Alumni Publications Photographs. Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.

[bigriverbindery]

Had a great visit to the @roselibraryrarebooks where I saw this lovely fine binding by Sam Ellenport of #harcourtbindery. Lovely tooling and onlays. Anyone can go see it, just make an appointment. #bookbinding #bookarts #finebinding #samellenport #goldtooling #atlantabookarts (at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library) https://www.instagram.com/p/CeABzH-sYdP/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[seeselfblack]

Documenting the Billiops-Hatch Story... 

In early 2015, my son, Henry, and I spent a memorable afternoon filming in the SoHo loft of James Hatch and Camille Billops with Emory archivists/scholars Pellom McDaniels and Randall Burkett, and the Rose Library director Rosemary Magee. One of the results of that day was a short documentary that gives an overview of Camille and Jim's passions and work -- creating art and documenting African American life and culture -- over the last 50+ years. Besides being online (see below), the documentary is playing at the "Still Raising Hell" exhibition (September 15, 2016 through May 14, 2017) that features some of the materials now residing in Emory's Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library... 

- The Emory Archive - http://billopshatch.library.emory.edu/documentary.html 

[odinsblog]

LOVE, BARACK (by Laura Douglas-Brown, Emory University)

“School. What intelligent observations can I glean from the first two weeks? I pass through the labyrinths, corridors, see familiar faces, select and discard classes and activities, fluctuate between unquenchable curiosity and heavy, inert boredom.”

These words, written just over 35 years ago, will feel familiar to most college students — far from home, starting a new academic year, “not having yet settled on the limits, and thus the form, that the new semester will take.”

Their young author, writing to his girlfriend and pondering topics ranging from college classes to social class, could be any of us who ever wondered where we fit in the world. Except he went on to become the 44th president of the United States, the first African American to hold the highest office in the nation.

The series of letters written by Barack Obama to his then-girlfriend, Alexandra McNear, are now part of the collection of Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, where they are available to scholars and students by appointment. There will be an opportunity to view facsimiles of the letters on Friday, Oct. 20, from 2 t0 4 p.m. in the Woodruff Commons of the Rose Library.

Beautifully composed, the letters “reveal the search of a young man for meaning and identity,” says Rosemary Magee, Rose Library director. “While intimate in a philosophical way, they reflect primarily a college student coming to terms with himself and others.

(continue reading)

[trascapades]

🎙🎨 #ArtIsAWeapon Today @adama_atl artist talk with Edward S. Spriggs and Pellom McDaniels III @mcdanielsiii, 12 Noon EST. Register: www.adamatl.org Reposted from @fahamupecou This week’s #ADAMAArtSalon features an exclusive conversation with a legendary arts leader. Edward S. Spriggs is a former director of The Studio Museum of Harlem, and founding director of the Hammonds House Museum in Atlanta. Throughout his career, Ed Spriggs has been a vocal and ardent champion of African Diaspora art and culture. The conversation is moderated by Pellom McDaniels III (@mcdanielsiii), curator of African American collections at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University. #everywherewegothereweare #ADAMA #AFRICANDIASPORA #TraScapades #ArtIsAWeapon #BlackGirlArtGeeks🤓 https://www.instagram.com/p/B_KlpEDgXC_/?igshid=qqr3agdq3ovm

[kathleenseiber]

3 plants from U.S. Civil War medical guide fight infection

Three plants from a guide to traditional plant remedies of the South that the Confederate Surgeon General commissioned during the height of the Civil War have antiseptic properties, according to new research.

The results show that extracts from the plants—the white oak, the tulip poplar, and the devil’s walking stick—have antimicrobial activity against one or more of a trio of dangerous species of multi-drug-resistant bacteria associated with wound infections: Acinetobacter baumannii, Staphylococcus aureus, and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

“Our findings suggest that the use of these topical therapies may have saved some limbs, and maybe even lives, during the Civil War,” says senior author Cassandra Quave, assistant professor at the Center for the Study of Human Health and the School of Medicine’s dermatology department at Emory University.

Quave is an ethnobotanist who studies how people use plants in traditional healing practices to uncover promising candidates for new drugs. “Ethnobotany is essentially the science of survival—how people get by when limited to what’s available in their immediate environment,” she says. “The Civil War guide to plant remedies is a great example of that.”

A field hospital at Gettysburg. (Credit: National Park Service)

“Our research might one day benefit modern wound care, if we can identify which compounds are responsible for the antimicrobial activity,” says Micah Dettweiler, the first author of the paper in Scientific Reports.

If researchers can identify the active ingredients, “it is my hope that we can then [further] test these molecules in our world-renowned models of bacterial infection,” says coauthor Daniel Zurawski, chief of pathogenesis and virulence for the Wound Infections Department at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

“I’ve always been a Civil War buff,” Zurawski adds. “I am also a firm believer in learning everything we can garner from the past so we can benefit now from the knowledge and wisdom of our ancestors.”

Dettweiler was still an Emory undergraduate when he heard about the Civil War plant guide and decided to research it for his honors thesis. He has since graduated with a degree in biology and now works as a research specialist in the Quave lab.

“I was surprised to learn that far more Civil War soldiers died from disease than in battle,” he says. “I was also surprised at how common amputation was as a medical treatment for an infected wound.”

About one in 13 surviving Civil War soldiers went home with one or more missing limbs, according to the American Battlefield Trust.

Francis Porcher, a botanist and surgeon from South Carolina, compiled Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, which included plant remedies that Native Americans and enslaved Africans used. This 1863 copy is from the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library. (Credit: Emory)

At the time of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, germ theory was in its developmental stages and only gradually beginning to gain acceptance. Formal medical training for physicians was also in its infancy. An antiseptic was simply defined as a tonic used to prevent “mortification of the flesh.” Iodine and bromine were sometimes used to treat infections, according to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, although the reason for their effectiveness was unknown.

Other conventional medicines available at the time included quinine, for treating malaria, and morphine and chloroform, to block pain.

Military field hospitals within the Confederacy, however, did not have reliable access to these medicines due to a blockade—the Union Navy closely monitored the major ports of the South to prevent the Confederacy from trading.

Seeking alternatives, the Confederacy commissioned Francis Porcher, a botanist and surgeon from South Carolina, to compile a book of medicinal plants of the Southern states, including plant remedies used by Native Americans and enslaved Africans. “Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests,” published in 1863, was a major compendium of uses for different plants, including a description of 37 species for treating gangrene and other infections. Samuel Moore, the Confederate Surgeon General, drew from Porcher’s work to produce a document called “Standard supply table of the indigenous remedies for field service and the sick in general hospitals.”

A cartoon map, created in 1861, uses a snake to illustrate Gen. Winfield Scott’s plan to crush the Confederacy economically through a blockade, sometimes called the “Anaconda plan.” (Credit: Library of Congress) View larger.

For the current study, the researchers focused on three plant species Porcher cited for antiseptic use that grow in Lullwater Preserve on the Emory campus. They included two common hardwood trees—the white oak (Quercus alba) and the tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera)—as well as a thorny, woody shrub commonly known as the devil’s walking stick (Aralia spinose).

Researchers gathers samples of these three plants from campus specimens, based on Porcher’s specifications. They took the extracts from white oak bark and galls; tulip poplar leaves, root inner bark and branch bark; and the devil’s walking stick leaves. They then tested the extracts on three species of multi-drug-resistant bacteria commonly found in wound infections.

Aceinetobacter baumannii—better known as “Iraqibacter” due to its association with wounded combat troops returning from the Iraq War—exhibits extensive resistance to most first-line antibiotics. “It’s emerging as a major threat for soldiers recovering from battle wounds and for hospitals in general,” Quave says.

Staphylococcus aureus is considered the most dangerous of many common staph bacteria and can spread from skin infections or medical devices through the bloodstream and infect distant organs. Klebsiella pneumoniae is another leading cause of hospital infection and can result in life-threatening cases of pneumonia and septic shock.

Laboratory tests showed that extracts from the white oak and tulip poplar inhibited the growth of S. aureus, while the white oak extracts also inhibited the growth of A. baumannii and K. pneumoniae. Extracts from both of these plants also inhibited S. aureus from forming biofilms, which can act like a shield against antibiotics.

Extracts from the devil’s walking stick inhibited both biofilm formation and quorum sensing in S. aureus. Quorum sensing is a signaling system that staph bacteria use to manufacture toxins and ramp up virulence. Blocking this system essentially “disarms” the bacteria.

Traditional plant remedies are often dismissed if they don’t actively attack and kill pathogens, Quave notes, adding: “There are many more ways to help cure infections, and we need to focus on them in the era of drug-resistant bacteria.”

“Plants have a great wealth of chemical diversity, which is one more reason to protect natural environments,” Dettweiler says. He plans to go to graduate school with a focus on researching plants for either medical or agricultural purposes. “I’m interested in plants because, even though they don’t move from place to place, they are extremely powerful and important.”

A Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Program award to Emory and grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, and from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease supported the study.

Source: Emory University

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[collegetuitionassistance]

Have You Heard of This College?

Atlanta is one of the American south’s most vibrant and sophisticated cities, home to more than five million people, with a wealth of cultural and social entertainment and recreational activities for everyone. It is also home to Emory University. A member of the elite Association of Colleges, Emory is well known for its excellent undergraduate education in the arts and sciences and as a leading research university.

The Methodist Episcopal Church founded Emory College in 1836 in the small town of Oxford, Georgia. After struggling for years, the school took off in the late 1800s. In 1914 the college was looking to expand, and Asa Candler, founder of the Coca-Cola Company—still based in Atlanta—wrote what’s known as the “million-dollar letter,” offering seed money and donating land in Atlanta to the school. Emory University received a DeKalb County charter to build in its current location in 1915. Coca-Cola has continued to be generous to Emory, and it is considered poor school spirit to drink any other soda brand on campus.

Emory offers more than 70 undergraduate and graduate programs to just over 15,000 students as well as offering graduate degrees in business, nursing, law, medicine, public health, theology, bioethics, and ethics. Its libraries include Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Books, with literary collections, and extensive volumes on African American history and culture where students and visitors alike can browse rare books, read original letters and manuscripts, and listen to original recordings. Emory’s Candler School of Theology library is considered one of the country’s leading theological libraries, housing more than 550,000 volumes. Carter Center students at Emory participate in internships and lectures at former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s nonprofit which works in partnership with the university to advance peace and health worldwide.

The Emory Eagles compete within the NCAA Division III in 18 sports, and Arts at Emory hosts a myriad of programs in a variety of genres and performances.

Emory’s official school spirit, Dooley, is part of a quirky on-campus tradition. As legend has it, a biology lab skeleton who emerged at the university in 1899 was named Dooley after the first name and middle initial of the university president at the time. Each year, a group of students are selected to don the Dooley mantle. The identity of these students is one of Emory’s best-kept secrets. Every spring, students celebrate the spirit of Dooley for a Dooley Week, a week of fun and tradition. Dooley has the power to dismiss class, and that is the just the beginning of the celebration. Secret societies are also a part of the Emory tradition; DVS, the senior society, is the oldest, founded on the Oxford campus in 1902.

Atlanta is not only the capital of Georgia but is the state’s most populous city. It is known for its fine food, shopping, sports and entertainment venues as well as being a center for technology and business. There is much to see and do there, from visiting the Georgia Aquarium, the world’s largest indoor aquarium, to stopping by the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, and the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum. Atlanta also hosts the Atlanta Dogwood Film Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, and Midtown Music. From Atlanta, it’s an easy drive to the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge Mountains and only a half-day road trip to the beautiful beaches of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida.

If you want to delve into learning at one of the country’s leading universities in an exciting metropolitan, urban environment, Emory University might be just the place for you!

Julie Mitchell, Editor

May 23, 2019

[wp-yahoo-style-1042-yahoopa-blog]

Young Obama's college love letters released

Obama’s love letters from his college years in the 1980s have been released. (Photo: Getty Images)

Nine letters between former President Barack Obama and his college girlfriend, Alexandra McNear, have been obtained by Emory University.

The the letters cover a period in the early ’80s as Obama and McNear correspond long distance: Obama at Columbia University in New York City and McNear at Occidental College in California.

The two met at Occidental before Obama transferred to Columbia in 1981. The letters cover a period of transition for each of them as they discuss the challenges of college life, share visions of the future, and grapple with political topics of the day.

“I think undergraduate students will benefit immensely from seeing how, as a young man, Obama internalized his studies and got the most out of a liberal arts education,” says Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science and director of Emory’s James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference.

“It gets harder and harder to swim against the channels of specialization, as the course levels increase,” writes Obama in one letter. It’s hard to imagine a future president cramming for finals or worrying about the postcollege job market, but a vision of a nascent Obama begins to emerge from the letters.

Given his unconventional background, being raised in both Indonesia and Hawaii, the young Obama shares feelings of uncertainty about his place in the world. “I must admit large dollops of envy for both groups, my American friends consuming their life in the comfortable mainstream, the foreign friends in the international business world,” he writes.

He tells McNear about a return trip to Indonesia but finds himself cut off from his adopted home: “I’m treated with a mixture of puzzlement, deference and scorn because I’m American. … I see old dim roads, rickety homes winding back towards the fields, old routes of mine, routes I no longer have access to.”

The letters have a lyrical quality to them, and it isn’t difficult to see Obama’s gift for oration beginning to germinate in these early years. “I trust you know that I miss you, that my concern for you is as wide as the air, my confidence in you as deep as the sea, my love rich and plentiful,” he writes in one letter.

Gradually McNear and Obama’s relationship would cool, and the two would part amicably as friends. “I think of you often, though I stay confused about my feelings,” Obama writes. “It seems we will ever want what we cannot have; that’s what binds us; that’s what keeps us apart.”

The postcollege world would be a rough-and-tumble period for the future president, as he found salaries in the community-organizing world lacking. “Salaries in the community organizations are too low to survive on right now, so I hope to work in some more conventional capacity for a year, allowing me to store up enough nuts to pursue those interests next,” he writes.

Obama now has a net worth of $40 million, but at one time couldn’t afford to pay for stamps. “One week I can’t pay postage to mail a resume and writing sample, the next I have to bounce a check to rent a typewriter,” he tells McNear.

He would ultimately find a job at Business International but chafed at the corporate environment and planned to stay at most a year before pursuing his political ambitions.

“The resistance I wage does wear me down — because of the position, the best I can hope for is a draw, since I have no vehicle or forum to try to change things,” he notes. “For this reason, I can’t stay very much longer than a year. Thankfully, I don’t yet feel like the job has dulled my senses or done irreparable damage to my values, although it has stalled their growth.”

The letters will be housed at Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library and are available to students and scholars by appointment.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle

The Obamas send newlywed couple a moving note of congratulations

Michelle Obama marks 25th anniversary by sharing a throwback wedding photo

The Obamas’ new upscale address may be cursed

[cufaddi]

The Barack Obama that we know is a smooth politician and world leader—but in case you had any doubt, we now have proof that the former president was just as poetic in college as he is today.  Letters Obama wrote to his college girlfriend, Alexandra McNear, have been made public to researchers at Emory University's Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library in Atlanta on Thursday. SEE ALSO: Barack Obama crashes Michelle's talk with super sweet tribute for their 25th anniversary There are nine letters from Obama in total, ranging in dates from 1982 to early 1984 and spanning his time at Columbia University in New York City and Indonesia. The university has had these letters since 2014, but are now allowing researchers to paint a clearer picture of the man before the White House.  In the letters, Obama poetically discusses everything from community organizing to wrestling with his identity and his feelings—though they aren't necessarily love letters. According to a Emory professor, they cover the end of the pair's relationship.  “My ideas aren’t as crystallized as they were while in school, but they have an immediacy and weight that may be more useful if and when I’m less observer and more participant,” Obama wrote in one letter, dated in 1984, according to AP.  His thoughts on school are relatable. "School. What intelligent observations can I glean from the first two weeks? I pass through the labyrinths, corridors, see familiar faces, select and discard classes and activities, fluctuate between unquenchable curiosity and heavy, inert boredom," he wrote.  In another letter, Obama included a ripped out copy of a book review from the New York Times on Rachel M. Brownstein’s “Becoming a Heroine.” You can read more excerpts from the letters here, but you're going to have to make an appointment to see them yourself.  WATCH: Obama's official White House photographer is Insta-trolling Trump

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines http://ift.tt/2zCRTAo

[latestinfonews-blog]

Barack Obama Letters From 1980s Will Soon Be Made Available At Emory University

Barack Obama Letters From 1980s Will Soon Be Made Available At Emory University

Have you ever wondered what Ex-President Barack Obama was like when he was younger, Emory University has obtained letters to his then-girlfriend that could tell us more about his youth — and they will be available to the public later in this week? The nine letters were written and sent by Ex-President Obama to his then-girlfriend Alexandra McNear were obtained by Emory’s Stuart A. Rose…

[fisarmonical]

Student smoking a tobacco pipe. 1970s. Source: Emory University Office of Alumni Publications Photographs. Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.

[bigriverbindery]

We’ve stopped to see some books at @emoryrosemarbl while Shawn Sheehy is here. A great selection of books on view. #bookarts #paperengineering #rarebooks #atlantabookarts (at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsx_tO-AmQ0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=skw0ac372m4f

[lorettalivingston6911]

'Love, Barack': Obama Describes His 'Rich And Plentiful' Love In Intense Unearthed Letters To College Girlfriend

how I looked younger without plastic surgery

Wow. Meanwhile we can't even get a look at Donald Trump's tax returns.

Emory University has just made public nine very personal letters written by Barack Obama to his girlfriend Alexandra McNear from 1982 to 1984.

The couple met when they were both students at Occidental College and attempted to keep their relationship going long-distance when Barack transferred across the country to Columbia University.

Related: Barack Dated Another Woman At The Same Time As Michelle — And Asked Her To Marry Him First!

While the letters serve as a fascinating chronicle for historians of Obama's time as a college student and recent graduate just getting started at Business International, they're also insanely personal, revealing details of a romance long before Michelle Obama!

For instance, he describes a vivid memory of a moment they spent cuddling at a friend's home:

"A young black man with his arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling with moist eyes, and a young white woman resting her head on his arm, alone and facing the swirling expanse, outside the room, inside themselves, separate in the eye of the storm."

Dang. So poetic!

The sentiments, written during a period when Barack and Alexandra are growing apart, are more sad and confused than the public servant we've known the last decade.

See a few of the standout excerpts (below):

On His Ending Relationship

"I think of you often, though I stay confused about my feelings. It seems we will ever want what we cannot have; that's what binds us; that's what keeps us apart."

"I am not so naïve as to believe that a distinct line exists between romantic love and the more quotidian, but perhaps finer bonds of friendship, but I can feel the progression from one to the other (in my mind)."

"I trust you know that I miss you, that my concern for you is as wide as the air, my confidence in you as deep as the sea, my love rich and plentiful. Love, Barack."

On Healthy Debate

"[The challenge] lies in forging a unity, mixing it up, constructing the truth to be found between the seams of individual lives. All of which requires breaking some sweat. Like a good basketball game. Or a fine dance. Or making love."

On Serving Mankind

"I don't distinguish between struggling with the world and struggling with myself. … I enter a pact with other people, other forces in the world, that their problems are mine and mine are theirs. … The minute others imprint my senses, they become me and I must deal with them or else close part of myself off and make myself and the world smaller, lukewarm."

On Visiting His Childhood Home Of Indonesia

"I can't speak the language well anymore. I'm treated with a mixture of puzzlement, deference and scorn because I'm American, my money and my plane ticket back to the U.S. overriding my blackness. I see old dim roads, rickety homes winding back towards the fields, old routes of mine, routes I no longer have access to."

On Being Broke After College

"One week I can't pay postage to mail a resume and writing sample, the next I have to bounce a check to rent a typewriter..."

"Salaries in the community organizations are too low to survive on right now, so I hope to work in some more conventional capacity for a year, allowing me to store up enough nuts to pursue those interests next."

Tons of fascinating insights into the POTUS we miss the mostus.

The letters are now officially public record at Emory's Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. You can learn more HERE.

[Image via WENN.]

Real celebrity on the items

from LL Celeb Fueads http://ift.tt/2ikLUfn via IFTTT

[latoyarubalcava3546]

'Love, Barack': Obama Describes His 'Rich And Plentiful' Love In Intense Unearthed Letters To College Girlfriend

Wow. Meanwhile we can't even get a look at Donald Trump's tax returns.

Emory University has just made public nine very personal letters written by Barack Obama to his girlfriend Alexandra McNear from 1982 to 1984.

The couple met when they were both students at Occidental College and attempted to keep their relationship going long-distance when Barack transferred across the country to Columbia University.

Related: Barack Dated Another Woman At The Same Time As Michelle — And Asked Her To Marry Him First!

While the letters serve as a fascinating chronicle for historians of Obama's time as a college student and recent graduate just getting started at Business International, they're also insanely personal, revealing details of a romance long before Michelle Obama!

For instance, he describes a vivid memory of a moment they spent cuddling at a friend's home:

"A young black man with his arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling with moist eyes, and a young white woman resting her head on his arm, alone and facing the swirling expanse, outside the room, inside themselves, separate in the eye of the storm."

Dang. So poetic!

The sentiments, written during a period when Barack and Alexandra are growing apart, are more sad and confused than the public servant we've known the last decade.

See a few of the standout excerpts (below):

On His Ending Relationship

"I think of you often, though I stay confused about my feelings. It seems we will ever want what we cannot have; that's what binds us; that's what keeps us apart."

"I am not so naïve as to believe that a distinct line exists between romantic love and the more quotidian, but perhaps finer bonds of friendship, but I can feel the progression from one to the other (in my mind)."

"I trust you know that I miss you, that my concern for you is as wide as the air, my confidence in you as deep as the sea, my love rich and plentiful. Love, Barack."

On Healthy Debate

"[The challenge] lies in forging a unity, mixing it up, constructing the truth to be found between the seams of individual lives. All of which requires breaking some sweat. Like a good basketball game. Or a fine dance. Or making love."

On Serving Mankind

"I don't distinguish between struggling with the world and struggling with myself. … I enter a pact with other people, other forces in the world, that their problems are mine and mine are theirs. … The minute others imprint my senses, they become me and I must deal with them or else close part of myself off and make myself and the world smaller, lukewarm."

On Visiting His Childhood Home Of Indonesia

"I can't speak the language well anymore. I'm treated with a mixture of puzzlement, deference and scorn because I'm American, my money and my plane ticket back to the U.S. overriding my blackness. I see old dim roads, rickety homes winding back towards the fields, old routes of mine, routes I no longer have access to."

On Being Broke After College

"One week I can't pay postage to mail a resume and writing sample, the next I have to bounce a check to rent a typewriter..."

"Salaries in the community organizations are too low to survive on right now, so I hope to work in some more conventional capacity for a year, allowing me to store up enough nuts to pursue those interests next."

Tons of fascinating insights into the POTUS we miss the mostus.

The letters are now officially public record at Emory's Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. You can learn more HERE.

[Image via WENN.]