Barack Obama- First African-American President of the United States- Wiki Bio

Updated October 11, 2022

Barack Obama was a Politician, who served as the president of the U.S from 2009 to 2017. He became the first African-American president of the United States. His inspirational story shows- a middle-class upbringing in a solid family, the belief that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others, and the conviction that hard effort and education are the keys to success.

From 2005 to 2008, Obama represented Illinois as a U.S. senator. And from 1997 to 2004, he represented Illinois as a state senator. He enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1988, where he served as the school’s first black president of the law review.

From 1997 until 2004, when he decided to run for the U.S. Senate, he served as the 13th district’s senator in the Illinois Senate. With his victory in the Senate primary in March, his well-received keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his resounding victory in the Senate election in November, Obama gained widespread prominence in 2004.

After a competitive primary battle against Hillary Clinton, he received the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2008. In the general election, Obama defeated John McCain of the Republican Party, and on January 20, 2009, he and his running mate Joe Biden were inaugurated as president.

He was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, nine months later, which prompted both praise and condemnation. Obama was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2013, having won reelection by defeating Republican rival Mitt Romney.

He criticized the 2013 Snowden revelations as being unpatriotic during this time, although he also asked for more limitations on the NSA to address privacy concerns. Obama also advocated for LGBT Americans’ inclusion.

Both the American economy and the United States’ reputation overseas dramatically improved under Obama’s presidencies.

Childhood and Early Life of Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Hawaii Honolulu. He is the only American President, who was born outside 48 contiguous United States. He held a position as a community organizer in Chicago following his 1983 graduation from Columbia University.

His parents were a Kenyan father and an American mother. His mother, Ann Dunham (1942-1995), was primarily of English ancestry and was born in Wichita, Kansas. However, in 2007 it was learned that his great-grandfather Falmouth Kearney had immigrated to the US from the Irish village of Moneygall in 1850.

A few weeks after Barack’s birth, in late August 1961, he and his mother relocated to the University of Washington in Seattle. His father finished his undergraduate studies in economics in Hawaii at that time, earning his degree in June 1962.

Obama’s father left to pursue graduate studies at Harvard University on a scholarship, where he received an M.A. in economics. In March 1964, Obama’s parents split. Obama was 21 years old when his father died in a car accident.

Obama recalled his early years by saying: “I barely realized that my mother was white as milk and my father looked nothing like the people around me. He was black as pitch”. He talked about how it was difficult for him as a young adult to reconcile how other people saw his multicultural origins.

Education of Barack Obama

He attended local Indonesian-language schools from the age of six to ten, including Sekolah Dasar Katolik Santo Fransiskus Asisi for two years and Sekolah Dasar Negeri Menteng 01 for one and a half years. His mother also homeschooled him in English using the Calvert School course content.

When he was in Indonesia, his stepfather gave him a lesson to be resilient and taught him about ” how the world works”. Obama moved back to Honolulu in 1971 to live with Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, his maternal grandparents.

In his youth, his friends used to call him by his nickname “Barry”. From the fifth grade through the time he completed his graduation from high school in 1979, he utilized a scholarship to attend Punahou School, a private college-preparatory institution.

Of his years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: “The opportunity that Hawaii offered — to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect — became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear.”

Obama travelled to Los Angeles in 1979 after receiving his graduation from high school in order to enroll in Occidental College on a full scholarship. In 1983, he earned a 3.7 GPA and a Bachelor of Arts degree. Obama worked as a financial researcher and writer for the Business International Corporation for about a year after receiving his degree.

He then spent three months in 1985 as the project coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group on the City College of New York campus. In order to finish his first book, Obama agreed to a two-year appointment as a visiting law and government fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.

How Barack Obama Became President

Obama announced his presidential candidacy on February 10, 2007. The location of the announcement was seen as significant because it was also the location of Abraham Lincoln’s famous “House Divided” speech in 1858.

In a campaign that projected themes of hope and change, Obama focused on issues such as swiftly ending the Iraq War, improving energy independence, and revamping the healthcare system.

On November 4, Barack Obama won the presidential election. Obama defeated McCain by a landslide, earning 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173. The US democratic system elects the president and members of congress through the ballot box.

Contrary to the expectations of practically all citizens a year ago, the outcome of this election is a significant historical event since it marks the first time that an African American has been elected. Two implications flow from the outcome.

First, the overwhelming majority of Americans are willing to elect an African American as President, demonstrating a lessening of racial prejudice. More significantly, Obama is a political genius. No other American of black color could have won.

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