We grilled him for an hour about the topics on the minds of most Americans - war, poverty and hunger, unemployment, the economy, and education.
And, of course, something on the minds of most African Americans.
The legacy thing.
The president says he hasn't had time to reflect on his historic election.
"If we hadn't been dealing with nonstop crises over the last two years, maybe that would be something that folks would be more focused on," he said. "But I think a week after the inauguration, everybody had forgotten about it. Everybody said, 'What are you going to do about the economy?' "
He put in perspective his place in history.
"When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, my suspicion is, on a day-to-day basis, what he was worried about was hits. . . . He was thinking about winning games. And then, when he retired, he could look back and say, 'Well, that was something.' I tend to be focusing on getting hits and making plays."
Difficult times
With a 9.6 percent unemployment rate that refuses to budge, citizens are understandably frustrated, the president agreed.
Amid all the noise of no, it's hard to hear anything that sounds remotely understanding. While the diverse coalition that elected Obama is frayed but has not abandoned him, his support among African Americans remains steadfast, giving him an 88 percent approval rating - twice what he gets from the general electorate.
And that's despite black unemployment hovering at 16 percent, substantially more than that of the general population.
But what else is new? Even in boom times, black households have lagged behind whites by as much as 31 percent in median income. And from 2000 to 2008, African Americans in every age group actually lost income.
