Column: The boy who touched Obama’s head is graduating, with the ex-president’s congratulations

In each of the last two weeks, an 18-year-old American male has horrifically gripped the nation’s attention, one for allegedly gunning down 10 Black people at a grocery store in upstate New York, the other for slaughtering 19 Latino fourth-graders and two teachers at a Texas school. The photo that White House photographer Pete Souza hurriedly snapped, which to this day is an audience favorite in Souza’s popular speaking tours about his White House years, seemed to capture the promise inherent in Obama’s barrier-breaking election: That all Americans finally could imagine someone who looked like themselves in the nation’s highest office. He recalls thinking Obama “was just my dad’s boss” — his father, Carlton Philadelphia, worked then at the National Security Council and was about to take a State Department post in Mexico — and especially remembers being intimidated by the large office “and him towering over me.” But Jacob got the deeper meaning soon enough. Movies Review: Nobody misses dignity in the White House more than Obama photographer Pete Souza Dawn Porter’s documentary “The Way I See It” profiles White House photographer Pete Souza, who served under both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. “If I get to see another Black man be at the top, be at that pinnacle, then I want to follow that lead.” His mother, Roseane Philadelphia, told me in a phone interview from the family’s home in Kampala that Jacob over the years dreamed of being one thing and then another, but “the only thing” that’s been consistent is his desire to ultimately become president.