What is Barack Obama's background?

Answer 1

Barack Hussein Obama, II was born in 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii to Ann Dunham Obama and Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. His mother was an American citizen from Kansas and his father was a Kenyan citizen from Africa who met in college in Hawaii and married. Barack was their only child. His parents divorced when he was still very young. His mother then wed his step father (Soetoro) who was Indonesian and another student she met at University. The new family moved to Jakarta for a few years. The schools were not keeping young Barack Obama challenged and so his mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with her parents so he could get a better education in the US. He has 7 living half-siblings and one half brother who is deceased. All, except one, are male and are children of his father's with different mothers (whom he never knew when growing up). He did live briefly with his only half sister, Maya Soetoro, his mother's daughter by her second husband, born when they lived in Indonesia.

He lived in Hawaii with his grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, from the age of 10 until he left for college in California after high school graduation. He played Basketball on his high school team, where he was known as Barry. He switched to Columbia College in NY where he received his bachelors' degree. After that he entered law school at Harvard where he graduated with honors and was elected President of the Harvard Law Review (a very prestigious position).

With his law degree, he worked at the same law firm in Chicago as Michelle, also an attorney, whom he later married. They have had two daughters, Malia and Sasha. He taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago until he decided to enter politics and ran for and won a seat in the Illinois Senate. He later was elected the US Senator for Illinois, which was his position immediately prior to his election to the office of POTUS in 2008. He was sworn into the office of US president in January 2009.

Shortly after becoming president, in October 2009, he received word that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his improvement of the strained international relationships between the US and other countries of the world early in his presidency.

He is currently campaigning for a second term in office in the 2012 election.

Answer 2

While Barack Obama is a US Senator which starts each session with the Pledge of Allegiance often, there is no clear answer to this question. There is a YouTube video showing Obama leading the Senate in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (with his hand to his heart), and there are pictures showing Obama holding his hand to his heart for the Pledge on other occasions. This confusion was the result of a picture showing Obama standing without his hand to his heart, next to two other candidates who are holding their hands to their heart. But the photo's caption is incorrect, they are not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, but rather standing for the National Anthem (which can be verified by watching a YouTube video of the event). This was during an informal, outdoor event for Democratic candidates. Although protocol suggests that the hand should be held to the heart during the National Anthem, observing any sporting event will show that only some Americans do so. But regardless of hand placement, most Americans stand respectfully during the National Anthem, which is what Obama was doing in that photograph. When his aides were asked about this, they replied that sometimes Obama puts his hand to his heart during the Anthem, and other times he does not. It has also been reported that Senator Obama believes that to say the pledge may be offensive to others and that he wouldn't want to take sides on the issue of saying the Pledge.

Answer 3

The short version is this: Barack Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, to a white American mom and an African dad (from Kenya). His parents divorced when he was about two, and his mom later remarried. He moved to Indonesia with his mom and new step-dad when he was five, and then returned to Hawaii when he was ten, living with his maternal grandparents till he graduated high school in 1979. After his biological dad left the family, young Barack only saw him one other time. He later wrote a best-selling book, "Dreams from my Father," about the impact of not having his dad involved with his life, and what he learned about his father after he visited Kenya and met some of his relatives for the first time in the late 1980s.

Barack Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years, and then transferred to Columbia College (today Columbia University) in New York, where he graduated in 1983. He went to work in Chicago as a community organizer and advocate for the poor, and then attended Harvard University Law School, graduating in 1991 with academic honors. He became a civil rights lawyer and a law professor in Chicago. He married Michelle (Robinson) in 1992 and they had two daughters. He decided to run for political office in 1996, and was elected to the Illinois state senate, where he served three terms. In 2004, he gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, raising his profile and demonstrating what an excellent speaker he was. Later that year, he was elected a US Senator from Illinois, and then, in 2007-2008, he ran for president. He won in November 2008, and became America's first African-American president. In 2012, he was re-elected, and is serving a second term.

Answer 4

If you are asking about his ancestry, he is biracial, African on his dad's side and American on his mom's; he was born in Hawaii in 1961, when his parents were college students. When he was two, his dad abandoned the family, and his parents were ultimately divorced. When young Barack was about five, his mom re-married and they moved to Indonesia, where they lived for about four years. Although he recalls being generally happy there, he missed his friends and grandparents in Hawaii, plus his mom wanted him to attend better schools, so he moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents, graduating from high school in 1979.

He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, California for two years, and then transferred to Columbia in New York, where he graduated in 1983. he found work in Chicago, at a Catholic-run charity, where he was a community organizer and advocate for the poor. He went to Harvard Law School and graduated in 1991, returning to Chicago to be a civil rights attorney and teaching law at the University of Chicago Law School for nearly twelve years. He married a lawyer (Michelle Robinson), and they had two daughters. He decided to enter politics, and in 1996 was elected to the Illinois state senate, where he served for three terms, before becoming a US senator in 2004 and then president in 2008. I enclose some links to further biographical data about him.

Answer 5

The president was born in Hawaii in 1961. His mother and father were university students, in an inter-racial marriage (still rare back then): his mom was American, his dad was from Kenya. But when Barack was two, his dad abandoned the family, and Barack would only see him one more time in his life. Barack's mom re-married and moved to Indonesia with her new husband. Barack attended school in Jakarta (first at a Catholic school, then at a public school) but seemed happy to return to Hawaii to finish his education.

His grandmother and his mother seem to have been his two major influences; he was also influenced by the absence of his father. He was, by his own account, struggling to find his way in life, and was not very motivated about college, although he did go-- first in Los Angeles and then in New York. But at some point, he got interested in political science and then decided to become a lawyer. He got a Bachelor's degree from Columbia, and eventually completed a law degree at Harvard, where he was the first black student to be editor of the Harvard Law Review. He spent time working with the poor as a community organizer in Chicago, and taught law courses as the University of Chicago. He fell in love and married a woman named Michelle Robinson (a fellow lawyer). And he decided he wanted a career in politics. He wrote his life story in a book called "Dreams From My Father."

Answer 6

* Born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961, to Barack Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham

* His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student. His mother was from Kansas

* His father was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, where he grew up herding goats.

* Barack's parents eventually divorced - his mother remarried

* He lived in Indonesia for a time before returning to Hawaii to live with his grandparents

* He later moved to New York, where he graduated from Columbia University in 1983.

* Married to Michelle Obama (nee Robinson)

* Two daughters: Malia Ann Obama, Natasha Obama

* The family lives on Chicago's South Side where they attend Trinity United Church of Christ.

Answer 7

Barack Obama's parents met in a basic Russian language course while both were attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where Obama's father was enrolled as a foreign student.[6] Obama was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, with his birth being announced in The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.[7][8][9][10] Old friends in Mercer Island, Washington recall his mother visiting them with her new baby later on that summer.[11][12][13][14] She subsequently enrolled at the University of Washington, and lived in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle as a single mother with her son.[8][12][15][16][17][18][19] She and her son left Seattle in the summer of 1962 and she re-enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His parents divorced in 1964.[20] After the separation, he, his mother and his grandparents moved into a single-story home in the Manoa district.[7] His father received a Masters degree in Economics from Harvard University, then returned to Kenya, where he became a finance minister before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.[21][22] Throughout his early years, Obama was known at home and at school as "Barry."[23] He attended kindergarten at Noelani Elementary School, near his home.[24][25] While still resident in Manoa, Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro who was attending the University of Hawaii.[26] When Suharto, a military leader in Soetoro's home country, came to power in 1967, all students studying abroad were recalled and the family moved to Indonesia.[27] During his time in Indonesia, Obama attended local schools in Jakarta, from ages 6 to 10, where classes were taught in the Indonesian language. He first attended St. Francis Assisi Catholic school for almost three years.[28][29] When his family moved to a new neighborhood, Menteng,[30] he attended the secular, government-run SDN Menteng 1 school for his fourth year.[30][28][31][32][33] Obama was a Cub Scout while living in Indonesia.[34] Obama's stepfather was "not religious", and "never went to prayer services except for big communal events", according to Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng.[31] When Obama was in third grade he wrote an essay saying that he wanted to become president. His teacher later told the Chicago Tribune that she was not sure what country he wanted to become president of but that he said that his reason for becoming president was that he wanted to make everybody happy.[23] Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents at an apartment in South Beretania Street, Honolulu, while attending Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from the fifth grade until his graduation in 1979.[35] Obama's mother, Ann, died of ovarian cancer and uterine cancer a few months after the publication of his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father.[36] Obama (right) with his father in Hawaii. ca. 1971

In the memoir, Obama describes his experiences growing up in his mother's middle class family. His knowledge about his African father, who returned once for a brief visit in 1971, came mainly through family stories and photographs.[22] Of his early childhood, Obama writes: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me - that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk - barely registered in my mind."[37] The book describes his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.[38] He wrote that he used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind".[39] Obama has said that it was a seriously misguided mistake. At the Saddleback Civil Presidential Forum Barack Obama identified his high-school drug use as his greatest moral failure.[40] Obama has stated he has not used any illegal drugs since he was a teenager.[41] Some of his fellow students at Punahou School later told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that Obama was mature for his age as a high school student and that he sometimes attended parties and other events in order to associate with African American college students and military service people. Reflecting later on his formative years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered - to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect - became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."[

Answer 8

Barack Obama is the first African-American to be the President of the United States and the first President to win the Nobel Peace Prize.