QUOTE : I felt that I owed more to children in general, and in particular to girls. Some of this was spawned by the response people tended to have to my life story -- the surprise that an urban black girl had vaulted through Ivy League schools and executive jobs and landed in the White House. I understood that my trajectory was unusual, but there was no good reason why it had to be. There had been so many times in my life when I'd found myself the only woman of color -- or even the only woman, period -- sitting at a conference table or attending a board meeting or mingling at one VIP gathering or another. If I was the first at some of these things, I wanted to make sure that in the end I wasn't the only -- that others were coming up behind me. As my mother, the plainspoken enemy of all hyperbole, still says anytime someone starts gushing about me and Craig and our various accomplishments, 'They're not special at all. The South Side is filled with kids like that.' We just need to help get them into those rooms.