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Barack Obama 's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office following his victory over Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Four years later, in the 2012 presidential election, he ...
- Barack Obama’s Early Life. Obama’s father, also named Barack Hussein Obama, grew up in a small village in Nyanza Province, Kenya, as a member of the Luo ethnicity.
- Barack Obama’s Education. At age 10, Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents. He attended the Punahou School, an elite private school where, as he wrote in his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, he first began to understand the tensions inherent in his mixed racial background.
- Barack Obama, Community Organizer and Attorney. After a two-year stint working in corporate research and at the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he took a job as a community organizer with a church-based group, the Developing Communities Project.
- Senator Barack Obama. In 1996, Obama officially launched his own political career, winning election to the Illinois State Senate as a Democrat from the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park.
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 education ...
Overview. Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president in US history. He was elected in 2008 and served two terms. Obama came into office during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and authorized a massive economic stimulus package that mitigated the worst effects of the ...
- Obama’s Parents. Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. Obama Sr. grew up herding goats in Africa and eventually earned a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams of going to college in Hawaii.
- Life in Hawaii. While living with his grandparents, Obama enrolled in the esteemed Punahou School. He excelled in basketball and graduated with academic honors in 1979.
- Obama’s Half-Siblings. Obama’s family includes six half-siblings located around the world. He shares a mother with half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng and has five paternal half-siblings.
- Illinois Senator. Encouraged by poll numbers, Obama decided to run for the open U.S. Senate seat, vacated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald. In the 2004 Democratic primary, he defeated multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes with 52 percent of the vote.
It was in this highly polarized environment that Obama and the Democrats attempted to enact health care insurance reform. Barack Obama - 44th President, Political Career, Legacy: In 1996 he was elected to the Illinois Senate, where, most notably, he helped pass legislation that tightened campaign finance regulations, expanded health care to ...
Personal. President Barack Obama. Barack Hussein Obama II was born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to parents Barack H. Obama, Sr., and Stanley Ann Dunham. His parents divorced when he was 2 years old and he was raised by his mother, Ann, and maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. His mother later married Lolo Soetoro, and his ...
