Whether you are
following politics or not, Barack Obama has become
a household name in America. This charismatic young man could
potentially be the next President of the United States. The process
of elections is being hold as of right now, so only time will tell
what will happen next. But who is the Barack Obama before he got
involved in politics? Here's some background information you may
find extremely interesting.Quick Stats
Name: Barack Hussein Obama II
Date of birth: August 4, 1961 (age: 47)
Wife: Michelle Obama - married in 1992
Children: two daughters - Malia Ann, Natasha
Residence: Kenwood (south side of Chicago), Illinois
Alma mater: Harvard Law School, Columbia University, Occidental College
Currently:
Junior Senator for Illinois, since 2005
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, since 2007
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 general election
Trivia
- In high school, he was known as "Barry"
- His first name comes from a word that means "blessed by God" in
Arabic
- Is a die-hard Chicago White Sox fan
- Named one of Time magazine's "100 most influential people in
the world" list in 2005 and 2007
- Won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word for the CD version of
his autobiography "Dreams From My Father" in 2006, and a second
Grammy in the same category for "The Audacity of Hope" in
2008.
- His first date withMichelle Obama was Do the Right
Thing (1989)
- Enjoys playing basketball and poker.
- he quit smoking, as per his wife's suggestion, before his
campaign to win the Democratic nomination began.
Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.
His father was Barack Obama, Sr., from Kenya, and his mother was Ann Dunham, an American from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student. They separated when he was 2 years old and later divorced.
Dunham later married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967. Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was 10. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents until his graduation from high school in 1979. As an adult Obama admitted that during high school he used marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol, which he described at the Saddleback Church Civil Forum on the Presidency as his greatest moral failure. Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for several years and then back to Indonesia for her fieldwork. She died of ovarian cancer in 1995.
Barack with his mother Ann and her husband Lolo Soetoro, and his half-sister Maya Soetoro (in Indonesia).
Barack in his yearbook.
Barack with his maternal grandparents in Hawaii.
Following
high school, Obama:
- moved to Los Angeles and studied at Occidental College for 2
years
- then transferred to Columbia University in New York City,
majoring in political science with a specialization in
international relations, graduating with a B.A. in 1983
- subsequently worked at the Business International Corporation
for a year,
- and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.
After 4 years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer for 1985 to 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally composed of 8 Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (located on the south side of Chicago).
Obama entered Harvard
Law School in late 1988 and at the end of his first year was
selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review
based on his grades and a writing competition. In 1990, his second
year, he was elected the first black president of the Law Review, a
full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and
supervising the law review's staff of 80 editors. Eventually, he
ran as a Democrat for the state senate seat from his district, Hyde
Park and some of the poorest ghettos on the South Side, and
won.
In 2004 Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, representing Illinois, and gained national attention by giving a rousing and well-received keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. In 2008 he sought the Democratic nomination for the US Presidency.
His personal memoir is a best-selling popular book known as "Dreams from My Father", published in 1995. In 2006, he published another best-selling book called "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream".
"In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."
"There's not a liberal America and a conservative America. There's the United States of America. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states, and have gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war, and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."
Barack Obama's biological father, Barack Obama Sr.
References/Images:
Reader's Digest
barackobama.com
Wikipedia
IMDB
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