Childhood. Education. Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was born in Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii. His parents met at the University of Hawaii. His father, a dark-skinned Kenyan Barack Hussein Obama Sr., came to the United States to study economics. Mother, white American Stanley Ann Dunham, studied anthropology. When Barack was still a baby, his father went to continue his studies at Harvard, but due to financial difficulties he did not take his family with him. When his son was two years old, Obama Sr. returned alone to Kenya, where he received a position as an economist in the government apparatus. He divorced his wife. In 1982, he died in a car accident in Kenya. Obama Jr. did not know his father.
When Barak was six years old, Ann Dunham remarried - to an Indonesian student. Together with his mother, half-sister and stepfather Lolo Soetoro, the boy went to Indonesia, where he spent four years. He studied at one of the public schools in Jakarta. Then he returned to Hawaii, lived with his mother's parents. In 1979 he graduated from Punahou Privileged Private School in Honolulu. In later published memoirs, Obama recalled that in high school he used marijuana and cocaine, and his academic performance declined.
After high school, Obama attended Western College in Los Angeles, then transferred to Columbia University, graduating in 1983. The main subjects for study at the university were political science and international relations.
Barack Obama received his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1991.
Career. After receiving a bachelor's degree from the university in 1983, Obama worked for the International Business Corporation for a year. He was a financial analyst and author of articles and reports on finance and international business for large corporations.
In 1985 he moved to Chicago. Until 1988, he worked as a director for organizing the activities of churches and public organizations. Developed projects on changes in the field of education for the poor, training programs for the unemployed and other social projects. Then he entered Harvard Law School.
In 1990, Barack Obama becomes the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Club in its 104-year history. In 1991, having received his doctorate, he returned to Chicago, where a year later he organized and led the local election campaign on several social projects.
In 1993, he held the position of junior employee, and three years later - the post of consultant in the large law firm Miner, Barnhill and Galant. There, the basis of his interests were cases on civil rights and public affairs.
In 1993, Obama also began lecturing in jurisprudence (course "Constitutional Law") at the University of Chicago Law School, where he worked until 2004.
In 1996, Barack Obama is elected to the local Illinois State Senate, where he begins his activities in the sphere of influence on lawmaking (in areas such as social reform, school reform, taxation).
In 1995, Barack Obama's first book, Dreams Inherited from His Father, was published, which made the novice politician famous and popular. This was the second time an African-American politician had entered the "black" trend in American society. Later, in 2006, the politician published the book The Courage of Hope. Both books became bestsellers. And the audio version of the first in 2006 was awarded the Grammy Award.
In 2004, Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention made him popular among his fellow party members. And in the same year, he won a landslide victory in the elections to the US Senate, overtaking his Republican competitor by more than two times.
Since January 2005, he has been a member of the US Senate from Illinois. He became the fifth African American senator in the history of the United States and at that time the only African American in the Senate.
November 4, 2008 won the presidential election and became the first black owner of the White House. The inauguration ceremony took place on January 20, 2009.
In November 2012, Barack Obama received the support of the majority of Americans for the second time in the US presidential election, beating his rival Republican Mitt Romney.
On January 20, 2017, Obama's presidency ended with the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, who defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the November 2016 elections.
Views and assessments. In the Senate, Obama served on several committees: on the environment and public works, on veterans' affairs, and on foreign relations. As previously in the State Senate, he collaborated with the Republicans on a number of issues, in particular, in the development of legislation on government transparency. In general, Obama voted in the Senate in accordance with the liberal line of the Democratic Party. He paid close attention to the idea of developing alternative energy sources.
Senator Obama managed to win the sympathy of the press unusually quickly and become one of the most visible figures in Washington. By the fall of 2006, observers already considered it quite possible for him to be nominated in the next presidential election. In early 2007, he was second only to Senator Hillary Clinton on the list of Democratic Party favorites. As of early February 2007, Obama was ready to support 15% of Democrats, and Clinton - 43%. The data at the beginning of June 2008 surpassed the most optimistic forecasts of his supporters - the gap was only 3% in favor of Hillary, after which the black candidate became a clear leader. And in August, Obama officially became the single candidate of the Democratic Party.
On November 4, 2008, he overtook Republican rival John McCain in the elections by a significant margin. Was the leader for almost the entire finish line.
Family. Since 1992, the politician has been married to lawyer Michelle Robinson Obama. They have two daughters - Malia and Sasha.
07/29/2021