Introduction
Barack Obama, The President of USA, is the most powerful head of the state on the earth as he presides over world’s largest, and strongest country, nay, world’s sole superpower, commander-in-chief of planet’s richest, deadliest military; keeps the buttons of nuclear arsenal containing more than 5,000 warheads; under his fingers; not frightened the least by any opposition as his democrats have majorities in both US representative house and claims to be the one whose virtues were promptly senate and recognized by the world; soon after his coming into limelight and in recognition whereof he is awarded Nobel prize.
Barack Obama Biography
Birth And Parentage
Barack Hussein Obama II was born on august 4th, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama Sr. Was of Luo ethnicity ok Kenya. Hussein was their middle name Barack Obama sr.’s father originally Christians had embraced Islam. Barack’s mother, Ann Dunham, an American, was brought up in Kansas state. His parents had met during college at university of Hawaii at Manoa and got married and were gifted by god with the promising son Obama to soon. However, their conjugal life could not run smoothly for a long time and when Barack Obama was hardly two years old, the parents separated and later on divorced in 1964.
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Obama and his mother then came to stay with his maternal grandparents in Manoa district . His father having received master degree in economics from Harvard moved back to the Kenya, got married again & the other marriage of his father, Barack has two half-sisters and five half brothers, all of them in Kenya. His father became finance minister in Kenya and eventually died in a road accident in the year 1982. Before his death, his father met Obama only once in 1971 when he visited Hawaii. In such a position, all the Obama knows about his father is only through his stories and photographers. Obama’s mother married an Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro while they were in Manoa. In 1967, Obama with his mother and step father moved to Jakarta, Indonesia. It was a critical time when, Suharto came to the power in Indonesia and all residents and students studying abroad were called back to their home land.
Education
In Indonesia, Barack attended all local schools where the medium of language was Indonesian. He stayed in Indonesia till his fourth grade. Thereafter, he moved with his grandparents to Honolulu, Hawaii.
A Multicultural Multiracial Heritage
Barack Obama, as admitted by himself, struggled through his initial childhood years to find answers about his multicultural, multi racial heritage. Even in his small childhood, he found vast differences between his mother and father’s skin color.
Off The Track
During his teenage years, he happened to use cocaine, marijuana and alcohol to idea with his internal conflicts, but before long he realized that it was a big mistake and he gave up those illegal drugs for good.
Education In US
After high school, Barack moved to Los Angeles. He studied at the occidental college for two years and then at Columbia college in New York . He majored in Political science with specialization in international relations in 1983.
A Peep Into Barack’s Family Life
Barack’s wife Michelle Robinson and Barack were gifted with their daughter, Malia Ann in 1998 and second daughter Natasha, known as Sasha in 2001. His second book, ‘audacity of hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American dream’ was published in October 2006. It won him the ‘Grammy for best spoken word album’. Barack is a devoted basketball player and a Chicago white sox and Chicago bears fan. Through his father was brought up with Islamic faith, Barack follows Christianity.
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Beginning of Career
Soon Obama became the editor-in-chief and supervisor of law review staff of about 80 editors. As he was the first black to be elected to this position, it was a widely reported and much publicized event. While at law school in 1989, he worked as an associate at Sidley and Austin law firms. It was at the time that he met Michelle, a lawyer, who Beouslye came his wife, later on. Newton minnow, a managing partner there introduced him to many of Chicago’s top leaders. In the summer of 1990, he worked at Hopkins and Sutter. He graduated from Harvard in 1991 and moved back to Chicago where he practiced as a civil rights lawyer. At Harvard, he became a popular figure as he was the first black president of Harvard law review. He received an offer by university of Chicago law school to write book on racial relations.
For the purpose, he was offered a fellowship from the university and an office. In the meantime, he married Michelle Robinson in 1972. Obama had to take a long time to complete the book as it was a memoir. He included in it bits about his personal life also. He travelled to Bali with his wife and Wrost most of the part of the book there. In mid 1995, the manuscript was published, titled “dreams from my father: a story of race and inheritance. “he won the Grammy award for the audio version of this book.
Simultaneously, Barack Obama taught constitutional law at university of Chicago law school from 1992-2004; first as a lecturer from 1992 to 1996 and then as senior lecturer from 1996 to 2004. Davis, Minner, Barnhill and Galland law firm engaged him as civil rights attorney. He remained an associate in this law firm from 1993 to 1996 and then counsel from 1996 to 2004. He served on the board of directors woods fund of Chicago, Joyce foundation form 1994 to 2002.
Advent In Politics
In 1992 election, Obama had organized largest voter registration drives. Project vote. He had with him a staff of ten and around seven hundred volunteers. Their objective was to register around 150,000 African Americans in the state who were unregistered. He was elected in 1996 November and succeeded state senator alice palmer, in fact, Barack Obama was the only candidate left, after rest of the petitions were invalidated. He strongly worked for ethics reforms & criminal justice reforms. In 1998, Barack with US Senator Paul Simon passed the toughest Campagin money and any gifts received from the lobbyists.
He could serve three terms in the Illinois state senate, from the year 1997 to 2004. In the year 2003, he passed legislation to expand healthcare coverage to 70,000 children making Kidcare, state children’s health insurance program, permanent. The legislation comprised health insurance to uninsured parents, and thus 84,000 parents were added. Barack made efforts to get death penalty reforms. Illinois became the first state where videotaping, an interrogation became mandatory. Being the chairman of Illinois senate’s health and human services committee, Barack Obama led a legislation to be passed on racial profiling by the police. It implied maintaining records of the race, age and gender of the drivers detained.
Coming At The National Level
Barack Obama came into national lime light with his inspiring speech in July 2004 at democratic national convention, criticizing the bush administration’s policies on Iraq war. The audience made out that he was an emerging star. Barack is a great orator, at par with martin Luther King Jr. And often compared with John F Kennedy. People wait for hours to hear him speak.
Barack In The US Senate
Barack announced his candidacy in 2003 for US senate. On 2nd November 2004, he won the election by a great victory margin and was finally, elected to the us senate. Barack obama became the fifth African American senator in the history to do so. Till 2006, he held minority appointments like foreign relations, environment and public works. Veteran’s affairs on senate committees. He was assigned committee of health, education, labor and pensions and committee on homeland security and government affairs at the start of 2007. While in US senate foreign relations committee, Barack visited Iraq to witness the war and in January introduced a legislation to end the Iraq war. He travelled to Russia and Africa.
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Tiresome Endeavours By Fireless Barack
Barack Obama endeavoured to correct the disparity that existed in the state of Illinois where veterans were receiving less disability benefits as compared to other states and got success in his efforts. In the field of education, he passed a legislation to carry summer education Programes which emphasize mathematics and problem solving skills. He endeavoured to get black colleges eligible for grant money.
As a member of minority party in 109th congress, Barack created legislation to control conventional weapon and nuclear material smuggling. Along with senator tom Coburn, he passed a law to bring more transparency in the system. He insisted that every American citizen has the right to know where his tax money goes and that information should be made available to them. In the 110th congress, he helped in creating legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, nuclear terrorism and care for us military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama declared his candidacy for the 2008 democratic presidential nomination in February 2007 at old state capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.
Eventually, only two remained in the contest; senator Hillary Clinton and Obama. On the 3rd June 2008, Obama became the presumptive nominee. In august 2008, he accepted the nomination and he was in competition with the republican nominee, john Mccain. On November 4,2008, Obama won the presidential election by a big margin. He delivered his victory speech at Chicago,s grant park in front of thousands of supporters. Not only nationwide but, worldwide celebration took place on his victory.