Born : August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.
Political party : Democratic
Spouse : Michelle Obama (m. 1992)
Children : Malia Ann (b. 1998)
Sasha (b. 2001)
Residence : Kenwood, Chicago, Illinois
Alma mater : Columbia University
Harvard Law School
Profession : Attorney, Politician
Religion : United Church of Christ
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., resident of Kenya, who was a domestic servant to the British and his mother was Ann Dunham.
Education:
Obama attended local schools, such as Asisi, in Jakarta until he was ten years old afterwords he returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979. After high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983.
Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. Based on his grades and a writing competition, at the end of his first year he was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. In February 1990, in his second year, Obama was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the Law Review's staff of eighty editors. He was the first African American to be elected to that position. Obama's election as the first black president of the Law Review was widely reported and followed by several long, detailed profiles in national media. During his summers, he returned to Chicago where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990. After graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.
Work:
After his graduation he worked for a year at the Business International Corporation and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group. After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side. He worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988. During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000. Achievements included helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens. Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya.
Political Carrier:
Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator. Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, and again in 2002. Though he lost in 2000, against a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one. In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority. Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate. Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 4, 2005.
On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. On May 31, the Democratic National Committee agreed to seat all of the disputed Michigan and Florida delegates at the national convention, each with a half-vote, narrowing Obama's delegate lead. On June 3, with all states counted, Obama passed the threshold to become the presumptive nominee. On that day, he gave a victory speech in St. Paul, Minnesota. Clinton suspended her campaign and endorsed him on June 7. From that point on, he campaigned for the general election race against Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee. On June 19, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created in 1976. On August 23, 2008, Obama selected Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate. Obama's former rival Hillary Clinton gave a speech in support of Obama's candidacy and later called for Obama to be nominated by acclamation as the Democratic presidential candidate.
On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama defeated John McCain in the general election and became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. On November 13, 2008 he announced that he would resign his senate seat on November 16, 2008, before the start of the lame-duck session, to focus on his transition period. This enabled him to avoid the conflict of dual roles as President-elect and Senator in the lame duck session of Congress, which no sitting member of Congress had faced since Warren Harding. His immediate successor will be named by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Family:
Obama met his wife, Michelle Robinson, in June 1989, when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin. They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992. The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998, followed by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001.
