Never Stop Dreaming: The Life and Legacy of Shimon Peres
2018
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Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States. His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and...
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- Overview
- Early life
Barack Obama’s parents married while students at the University of Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., a Kenyan, became an economist in the government of Kenya. His mother, S. Ann Dunham, became an anthropologist. They divorced in 1964. Ann then married (and later divorced) another foreign student, Indonesian Lolo Soetoro.
Where did Barack Obama attend school?
Barack Obama graduated from Punahou School, an elite academy in Honolulu, and then attended Occidental College before transferring to Columbia University and earning (1983) a B.A. in political science. He graduated (1991) magna cum laude from Harvard University’s law school and was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review.
What did Barack Obama do for a living?
After working as a writer and editor in Manhattan, Barack Obama became a community organizer in Chicago, lectured on constitutional law at the University of Chicago, worked as a civil rights attorney, and then served in the Illinois Senate (1997–2004), as a U.S. senator (2005–08), and as U.S. president (2009–17).
What did Barack Obama write?
Obama’s father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a teenage goatherd in rural Kenya, won a scholarship to study in the United States, and eventually became a senior economist in the Kenyan government. Obama’s mother, S. Ann Dunham, grew up in Kansas, Texas, and Washington state before her family settled in Honolulu. In 1960 she and Barack Sr. met in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii and married less than a year later.
When Obama was age two, Barack Sr. left to study at Harvard University; shortly thereafter, in 1964, Ann and Barack Sr. divorced. (Obama saw his father only one more time, during a brief visit when Obama was 10.) Later Ann remarried, this time to another foreign student, Lolo Soetoro from Indonesia, with whom she had a second child, Maya. Obama lived for several years in Jakarta with his half sister, mother, and stepfather. While there, Obama attended both a government-run school where he received some instruction in Islam and a Catholic private school where he took part in Christian schooling.
He returned to Hawaii in 1971 and lived in a modest apartment, sometimes with his grandparents and sometimes with his mother (she remained for a time in Indonesia, returned to Hawaii, and then went abroad again—partly to pursue work on a Ph.D.—before divorcing Soetoro in 1980). For a brief period his mother was aided by government food stamps, but the family mostly lived a middle-class existence. In 1979 Obama graduated from Punahou School, an elite college preparatory academy in Honolulu.
Britannica Quiz
43 Questions About Politics (Mostly in the United States) Compiled from Britannica’s Quizzes
Obama attended Occidental College in suburban Los Angeles for two years and then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where in 1983 he received a bachelor’s degree in political science. Influenced by professors who pushed him to take his studies more seriously, Obama experienced great intellectual growth during college and for a couple of years thereafter. He led a rather ascetic life and read works of literature and philosophy by William Shakespeare, Friedrich Nietzsche, Toni Morrison, and others. After serving for a couple of years as a writer and editor for Business International Corp., a research, publishing, and consulting firm in Manhattan, he took a position in 1985 as a community organizer on Chicago’s largely impoverished Far South Side. He returned to school three years later and graduated magna cum laude in 1991 from Harvard University’s law school, where he was the first African American to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review. While a summer associate in 1989 at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin, Obama had met Chicago native Michelle Robinson, a young lawyer at the firm. The two married in 1992.
Barack H. Obama is the 44th President of the United States. His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.
On November 4, 2008, Obama became the first African-American to be elected President. He resigned his seat in the U.S. Senate on November 16, 2008. Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009.
Barack Hussein Obama II ( / bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə / ⓘ, bə-RAHK hoo-SAYN oh-BAH-mə; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president in U.S. history.
Barack H. Obama. From the Collection: The Presidents. 44th President. Terms: 2009-2017. Political Party: Democrat. First Lady: Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama. Vice President: Joseph "Joe"...
Barack Obama. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Campaign Speech. Overview. Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States—becoming the first African American to serve in that office—on January 20, 2009.
