Early Years
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961. His
father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small
village in Kenya, where he grew up herding goats with his
own father, who was a domestic servant to the British.
Barack's mother, Ann Dunham, grew 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.
Barack's father eventually returned to Kenya, and Barack
grew up with his mother in Hawaii, and for a few years in
Indonesia. Later, he moved to New York, where he graduated
from Columbia University in 1983.
The College Years
Remembering the values of empathy and service that his mother
taught him, Barack put law school and corporate life on hold
after college and moved to Chicago in 1985, where he became
a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to
improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with
crime and high unemployment.
The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize
that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that
community and other communities, it would take not just a
change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in
our politics.
He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991,
where he became the first African-American president of the
Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he returned to Chicago to
practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional
law. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois
State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he
became the third African American since Reconstruction to
be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Political Career
It has been the rich and varied experiences of Barack Obama's
life - growing up in different places with people who had
differing ideas - that have animated his political journey.
Amid the partisanship and bickering of today's public debate,
he still believes in the ability to unite people around a
politics of purpose - a politics that puts solving the challenges
of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and political
gain.
In the Illinois State Senate, this meant working with both
Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead
by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit,
which in three years provided over $100 million in tax cuts
to families across the state. He also pushed through an expansion
of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates
on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with
law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations
and confessions in all capital cases.
In the U.S. Senate, he has focused on tackling the challenges
of a globalized, 21st century world with fresh thinking and
a politics that no longer settles for the lowest common denominator.
His first law was passed with Republican Tom Coburn, a measure
to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American
to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax
dollars is spent. He has also been the lead voice in championing
ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption
in Congress.
As a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator
Obama has fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability
pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for
the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care
after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat
posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia
with Republican Dick Lugar to begin a new generation of non-proliferation
efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around
the world. And knowing the threat we face to our economy
and our security from America's addiction to oil, he's working
to bring auto companies, unions, farmers, businesses and
politicians of both parties together to promote the greater
use of alternative fuels and higher fuel standards in our
cars.
Whether it's the poverty exposed by Katrina, the genocide
in Darfur, or the role of faith in our politics, Barack Obama
continues to speak out on the issues that will define America
in the 21st century. But above all his accomplishments and
experiences, he is most proud and grateful for his family.
His wife, Michelle, and his two daughters, Malia, 10, and
Sasha, 7, live on Chicago's South Side. |
