Biography of Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama (Birth Name) was born August 4th, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small willage in Kenya, where he grew up herding goats with his father, who was a domestic servant to the british.

Barack’s mother, Ann Dunham, gerw up in small town Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the depression, and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Her mother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii.

It was there, at the University of Hawaii, where Barack’s parents met. His mother was a student there, and his father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams in America.

Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama’s father went to Harvard to pursue PH.D. studies and then returned to Kenya.
His mother married Lolo Soetoro, another East-West center student from Indonesia. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng was born.

Four years later when Barack (commonly known through his early years as “Barry”) was ten, he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, Stanley Dunham and Madelyn, and later his mother (who died of ovarian cancer in the year 1995).

He was enrolled in the fifth grade at the esteemed Punahou Academy, graduating with honors in 1979. He was only one of three black students at the school. This is where Obama first became conscious of racism and what it meant to be an African–American.

In his memoir, Obama described how he struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. He saw his biological father (who died in a 1982 car accident) only once (in 1971) after his parents divorced. And he admitted using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years.

After high school, Obama studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York, graduating in 1983 with a degree in political science.

After working at Business International Corporation (a company that provided international business information to corporate clients) and NYPIRG, Obama moved to Chicago in 1985. There, he worked as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s South Side.

It was during this time that Obama, who said he "was not raised in a religious household," joined the Trinity United Church of Christ. He also visited relatives in Kenya, which included an emotional visit to the graves of his father and paternal grandfather.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988. In February 1990, he was elected the first African–American editor of the Harvard Law Review. Obama graduated magna cum laude in 1991.

After law school, Obama returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer, joining the firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland. He also taught at the University of Chicago Law School. And he helped organize voter registration drives during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Obama published an autobiography in 1995 “Dreams from My Father”, A Story of Race and Inheritance. And he won a Grammy for the audio version of the book.

Obama’s advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate as a Democrat. He was elected in 1996 from the south side neighborhood of Hyde Park.

During these years, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics, expanded health care services and early childhood education programs for the poor. He also created a state earned-income tax credit for the working poor.

Barack’s political career began with his election to the Illinois Senate in 1996, where he would serve from 1997 to 2004. In 2000, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives, but would go on to run for the U.S. Senate a few years later.

And while Barack was running for U.S. Senate, he was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime: to give the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. And it was at that convention that Barack gave one of the most inspiring and moving political speeches ever delivered, and by the time the speech was over, Barack became a political heavyweight and an instant celebrity.

Barack went on to win his U.S. Senate race in a landslide, capturing 70% of the votes. And, riding a wave of strong popularity published his second best-selling book in 2006,
“The Audacity of Hope” which expanded on the issues he touched on in his 2004 DNC speech.

On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president of the United States.

Obama met his wife, Michelle, in 1988 and they were married in October 1992 and they currently live in Chicago, Illinois with their daughters, Malia and Sasha.