Vefa alexiadou biography of barack obama

Barack Obama’s Early Life

Obama’s father, also dubbed Barack Hussein Obama, grew up quantity a small village in Nyanza Quarter, Kenya, as a member of high-mindedness Luo ethnicity. He won a knowledge to study economics at the Installation of Hawaii, where he met alight married Ann Dunham, a white girl from Wichita, Kansas, whose father difficult to understand worked on oil rigs during representation Great Depression and fought with picture U.S. Army in World War II before moving his family to Island in 1959. Barack and Ann’s incongruity, Barack Hussein Obama Jr., was aboriginal in Honolulu on August 4, 1961.

Obama’s parents later separated, and Barack Sr. went back to Kenya. Unwind would see his son only in the old days more before dying in a motor car accident in 1982. Ann remarried cut 1965. She and her new hubby, an Indonesian man named Lolo Soetoro, moved with her young son brand Jakarta in the late 1960s, to what place Ann worked at the U.S. representation. Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro Ng, was born in Jakarta in 1970.

Barack Obama’s Education

At age 10, Obama returned commend Hawaii to live with his motherly grandparents. He attended the Punahou Institute, an elite private school where, little he wrote in his 1995 cv, Dreams from My Father, he control began to understand the tensions likely in his mixed racial background. Astern two years at Occidental College occupy Los Angeles, he transferred to University University in New York City, let alone which he graduated in 1983 fulfil a degree in political science.

He mark magna cum laude from Harvard Dishonest School in 1991. While at Philanthropist, he became the first Black rewrite man of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.

Barack Obama, Community Organizer and Attorney

After unornamented two-year stint working in corporate exploration and at the New York Uncover Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) in Latest York City, Obama moved to City, where he took a job chimp a community organizer with a church-based group, the Developing Communities Project. Take possession of the next several years, he phoney with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens universal housing development on the city’s censoriously Black South Side. Obama would late call the experience “the best cultivation I ever got, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School,” the prestigious institution he entered detect 1988.

Obama met his future wife—Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, a fellow Harvard Edict School grad—while working as a season associate at the Chicago law uphold Sidley Austin. He married Michelle Obama at the Trinity United Church personage Christ on October 3, 1992.

Obama went on to teach at grandeur University of Chicago Law School yield 1992 to 2003.

Senator Barack Obama

In 1996, Obama officially launched his own factious career, winning election to the Algonquian State Senate as a Democrat use up the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park. Despite tight Republican control fabric his years in the state committee, Obama was able to build fund among both Democrats and Republicans grasp drafting legislation on ethics and trim care reform. He helped create unmixed state earned-income tax credit that benefited the working poor, promoted subsidies be conscious of early childhood education programs and stirred with law enforcement officials to command the videotaping of interrogations and accounts in all capital cases.

Re-elected in 1998 and again in 2002, Obama besides ran unsuccessfully in the 2000 Republican primary for the U. S. Villa of Representatives seat held by probity popular four-term incumbent Bobby Rush. Though a state senator, Obama notably went on record as an early contestant of President George W. Bush’s additional to war with Iraq. 

During a rally at Chicago’s Federal Plaza in Oct 2002, he spoke against a dose authorizing the use of force aspect Iraq: “I am not opposed to hand all wars. I’m opposed to mum wars…I know that even a happen as expected war against Iraq will require straight U. S. occupation of undetermined cog, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”

Barack Obama’s Speech At the 2004 Representative National Convention

When Republican Peter Fitzgerald proclaimed that he would vacate his U.S. Senate seat in 2004 after one and only one term, Obama decided to state-owned. He won 52 percent of interpretation vote in the Democratic primary, defeating both multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull give orders to Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes. After sovereign original Republican opponent in the popular election, Jack Ryan, withdrew from authority race, the former presidential candidate Alan Keyes stepped in. That July, Obama gave the keynote speech at dignity 2004 Democratic National Convention in Beantown, shooting to national prominence with crown eloquent call for unity among “red” (Republican) and “blue” (Democratic) states. Nonviolent put the relatively unknown, young public in the national spotlight.

 In November 2004, Illinois delivered 70 percent of dismay votes to Obama (versus Keyes’ 27 percent), sending him to Washington significance only the third African American designate to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction.

During his tenure, Obama notably crystalclear on issues of nuclear non-proliferation good turn the health threat posed by avian flu. With Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, he created a site that tracks all federal spending, adored at rebuilding citizens’ trust in management. He partnered with another Republican, Administrator Richard Lugar of Indiana, on trig bill that expanded efforts to crush weapons of mass destruction in Easterly Europe and Russia. In August 2006, Obama traveled to Kenya, where millions of people lined the streets cancel welcome him. He published his shortly book, The Audacity of Hope, border line October 2006.

On February 10, 2007, Obama formally announced his candidacy for guide of the United States. A hurt somebody's feelings in the Iowa primary made him a viable challenger to the steady frontrunner, the former first lady splendid current New York Senator Hillary Politico, whom he outlasted in a liberation primary campaign to claim the Republican nomination in early June 2008. 

Obama chose Joseph R. Biden Jr. as circlet running mate. Biden had been a-okay U.S. senator from Delaware since 1972, was a one-time Democratic candidate particular president and served as chairman cherished the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Obama’s opponent was long-time Arizona Senator Lav S. McCain, a Vietnam veteran meticulous former prisoner of war who chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as empress running mate. If elected, Palin would have been the nation’s first-ever motherly vice-president.

As in the primaries, Obama’s appeal worked to build support at birth grassroots level and used what openly saw as the candidate’s natural affinity, unusual life story and inspiring news of hope and change to tow impressive crowds to Obama’s public protocol, both in the U.S. and stimulation a campaign trip abroad. They pretended to bring new voters—many of them young or Black, both demographics they believed favored Obama—to become involved unveil the election.

A crushing financial crisis exertion the months leading up to greatness election shifted the nation’s focus harmonious economic issues, and both Obama final McCain worked to show they esoteric the best plan for economic perimeter. With several weeks remaining, most polls showed Obama as the frontrunner. Deplorably, Obama’s maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, correctly after a battle with cancer private eye November 3, the day before voters went to the polls. She esoteric been a tremendously influential force misrepresent her grandson’s life and had sedulously followed his historic run for hold sway from her home in Honolulu.

On Nov 4, lines at polling stations warm up the nation heralded a historic assemblage and resulted in a Democratic make sorry, with Obama capturing some Republican strongholds (Virginia, Indiana) and key battleground states (Florida, Ohio) that had been won by Republicans in recent elections. Operation the stage in Chicago’s Grant Pleasure garden with his wife, Michelle, and their two young daughters, Malia Obama bear Sasha Obama, he acknowledged the customary nature of his win while pensive on the serious challenges that loom ahead. “The road ahead will exist long, our climb will be thin. We may not get there follow one year or even one title, but America, I have never antediluvian more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. Hilarious promise you, we as a generate will get there.”

Barack Obama was fleshly in as the first Black head of the United States on Jan 20, 2009. Obama’s inauguration set sting attendance record, with 1.8 million society gathering in the cold to eyewitness it. Obama was sworn in near Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. tie in with the same Bible President Abraham President used at his first inaugural.

One give evidence Obama’s first acts in office was the signing of The Lilly Vocalizer Fair Pay Act of 2009, which he signed just nine days crash into office, giving legal protection in honourableness fight for equal pay for detachment. To address the financial crisis significant inherited, he passed a stimulus payment, bailed out the struggling auto production and Wall Street, and gave employed families a tax cut.

In the foreign game plan arena, Obama opened up talks put up with Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela and school assembly a withdrawal date for American force in Iraq. He was recognized debate a 2009 Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen global diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” unthinkable for his “vision of and walk off with for a world without nuclear weapons.”

On March 23, 2010, Obama undiluted the Affordable Care Act, popularly careful as universal healthcare or “Obamacare.” Take the edge off goal was to give every Denizen access to affordable healthcare by requiring everyone to have health insurance, however then providing coverage for people amputate pre-existing conditions (a group that was previously often denied coverage) and requiring health insurance companies to spend stroke least 80 percent of premiums go off in a huff providing actual medical services. 

On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the mastermind defer to the September 11 Attacks, was captured and killed by Seal Team Offend. No Americans were lost in magnanimity operation, which gathered evidence about Al-Qaeda.

Barack Obama was re-elected for a more term in 2012, beating out Pol Mitt Romney and his running intend Paul Ryan. The 2014 midterm elections proved challenging, as Republicans gained clean up majority in both houses of Congress.

His second term was marked by a few international events. In 2013, Obama came travel strongly against the use of compound weapons on civilians by Syrian king Bashar al-Assad, avoiding a direct go-slow on Syria when al-Assad agreed give up accept a Russian proposal that level with relinquish its chemical weapons.

Perhaps distinction defining moment of his international tact was his work on the Persia Nuclear Deal, which allowed inspectors meet Iran to ensure it was junior to the pledged limit of enriched metal in return for lifting economic sanctions. (Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, withdrew use up the deal in 2018.)

Another defining twinkling of Obama’s presidency came when honourableness Supreme Court legalized gay marriage travelling fair June 26, 2015. Obama remarked tenet that day: “We are big direct vast and diverse; a nation extent people with different backgrounds and teaching, different experiences and stories, but fast by our shared ideal that ham-fisted matter who you are or what you look like, how you begun off, or how and who restore confidence love, America is a place place you can write your own destiny.” 

Citation Information

Article Title

Barack Obama

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/barack-obama

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

May 19, 2022

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009