Meet Barack
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, 9, and Sasha, 6, live on Chicago's South Side.