Barack Obama

At 62 years old, Barack Obama has this physical status:

Early life and career

In Honolulu, Hawaii, President Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children. He is the only president born outside of the contiguous 48 states. He was born to an American mother and a Kenyan father. Ann Dunham (1942–1995) was born in Wichita, Kansas, and was mainly of English descent, but it was discovered in 2007 that her great-grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1850. Dunham was descended from John Punch, an enslaved African man who lived in the Colony of Virginia during the nineteenth century, according to Ancestry.com in July 2012. Barack Obama Sr. (1934-1982), a retired Luo Kenyan from Nyang'oma Kogelo, was Obama's father (1934-1982). In 1960, Obama's parents took part in a Russian language course at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, where his father was a foreign student on a scholarship. On February 2, 1961, six months before Obama was born, the couple married in Wailuku, Hawaii.

Barack and his mother were born in late August 1961, just weeks after he had been born, and they migrated to University of Washington in Seattle, where they lived for a year. During this period, Barack's father earned his undergraduate degree in economics in Hawaii, graduating in June 1962. On a merit at Harvard University, he earned a M.A. He moved to graduate school. In economics, there is a lot of money in economics. In March 1964, Obama's parents separated. Obama Sr. returned to Kenya in 1964, where he married for the third time and served with the Kenyan government as the Senior Economic Analyst in the Ministry of Finance. He only visited Hawaii once before being killed in an automobile crash in 1982, when Obama was 21 years old. "That my father looked nothing like the people around me, my mother white as milk," Obama said. He recalled his struggles as a youth to reconcile societal expectations of his multiracial roots.

Dunham met Lolo Soetoro at the University of Hawaii in 1963; he was an Indonesian East-West Center graduate student in geography. On March 15, 1965, the couple married on Molokai. Lolo returned to Indonesia in 1966 after two one-year extensions of his J-1 visa. In 1967, his wife and his stepson followed sixteen months later. The family lived in Menteng Dalam, South Jakarta's Tebet district. They lived in a wealthy neighborhood in Central Jakarta's Menteng district from 1970 to 1970.

Obama and his mother had gone to Indonesia to help his stepfather at the age of six. He attended local Indonesian-language schools from age six to ten, including Sekolah Dasar Santo Fransi (St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Elementary School) for two years and Sekolah Negeri Menteng 01) for one and a half years, supplemented by English-language Calvert School homeschooling by his mother. He was able to speak Indonesian fluently as a child as a result of his four years in Jakarta. "Irma's stepfather taught him how the world works during his time in Indonesia."

In 1971, President Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. He attended Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, with a scholarship from fifth grade to graduation in 1979. Obama went by the name "Barry" in his youth. From 1972 to 1975, Obama and his half-sister, Maya Soetoro, were living in Hawaii with his mother and half-sister, Maya Soetoro. His mother was a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Hawaii. When his mother and half-sister returned to Indonesia in 1975, Obama stayed in Hawaii, so his mother could resume anthropology field work. His mother lived in Indonesia for the majority of the next two decades, divorcing Lolo in 1980 and receiving a PhD degree in 1992, before passing away in 1995 in Hawaii after unsuccessful treatment for ovarian and uterine cancer.

"The opportunity that Hawaii provided — to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect — became an integral part of my global view and a foundation for the values that I hold dear." During his teenage years, Obama also wrote and discussed alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine to "push questions of who I was out of my mind." Obama was also a member of the "choom clan," a self-identified group of friends who spent time together and occasionally smoked marijuana.

Obama moved to Los Angeles to attend Occidental College on a full scholarship after graduating from high school in 1979. In February 1981, Obama made his first public speech, asking that Occidental to participate in the disinvestment from South Africa in reaction to the country's imperialist policies. In mid-1981, Obama travelled to Indonesia to visit his mother and half-sister Maya, as well as visiting the families of college friends in Pakistan for three weeks. He began as a junior at Columbia University in New York City, where he concentrated in international relations and English literature, and lived off-campus on West 109th Street. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983 with a 3.7 GPA. After graduating, Obama spent a year at the Business International Corporation, where he was a financial analyst and writer, and then as a project manager for the City College of New York campus for three months in 1985.

Two years after graduating from Columbia, Obama moved from New York to Chicago, where he was recruited as the project's director. The Developing Communities Project, a Catholic parishes established in Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale on Chicago's South Side, was based in Chicago. From 1985 to May 1988, he served as a community organizer. He helped develop a work preparation course, a college preparatory tutoring service, and a tenants' rights group in Altgeld Gardens. Obama has worked as a consultant and tutor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing group. He travelled to Europe for three weeks and then five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time in mid-1988.

Despite being offered a full scholarship to Northwestern University School of Law, Obama enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1988, and was residing in nearby Somerville, Massachusetts. At the end of his first year, he was named editor of the Harvard Law Review in his second year, president of the journal in his second year, and research assistant to the constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe while at Harvard for two years. He returned to Chicago during his summers, where he spent as a summer associate at Sidley Austin and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990. The first black president of the Harvard Law Review attracted national media attention, resulting in a publication deal and advance for a book on race relations, which later developed into a personal memoir. Dreams from My Father was published in mid-1995. In 1991, Obama received a Juris Doctor magna cum lauded as a result of his graduation from Harvard Law.

In 1991, Obama accepted a two-year position at the University of Chicago Law School as a visiting law and government scholar to work on his first book. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for a year, first as a student from 1992 to 1996, then as a senior lecturer from 1996 to 2004.

President Obama directed Illinois' Project Vote, a voter registration initiative with ten staffers and seven hundred volunteers, to its target of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, including Crain's Chicago Business, who named Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers.

In a 2006 interview, Obama spoke about the ethnicity of his extended family: "It's like a little mini-United Nations," he said. "I have relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I have relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher." Maya Soetoro-Ng) and seven other half-siblings from his Kenyan father's family are among Obama's siblings, with six of whom are living. Madelyn Dunham, a Kansas-born mother, lived with Obama until her death on November 2, 2008, just days before his ascension to the presidency. Obama has roots in Ireland; he and his Irish cousins were in Moneygall in May 2011. In Dreams from My Father, Obama links his mother's roots to potential Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Among other things, he also has distant ancestors who have something in common with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

When he was a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s, Obama worked with anthropologist Sheila Miyoshi Jager. He proposed to her twice, but both Jager and her parents turned down. The friendship wasn't revealed until May 2017, several months after his presidency had ended.

When he was working as a summer associate at Sidley Austin's Chicago law firm, Obama met Michelle Robinson in June 1989. Robinson was on staff for three months as Obama's advisor, and she helped him with numerous company social functions but turned down his initial requests to date. They began dating in 1991, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992. Michelle underwent in vitro fertilization to birth their children after suffering from a miscarriage. Malia Ann, the couple's first daughter, was born in 1998 and Natasha ("Sasha") in 2001. The Obama daughters attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. The girls began attending the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., in January 2009. The Obamas had two Portuguese Water Dogs, the first, a male named Bo, was a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy. Sunny, a female, welcomed Bo to join him in 2013. On May 8, 2021, Bo died of cancer.

Obama is a supporter of the Chicago White Sox, and he spit out the first pitch at the 2005 ALCS when he was still a senator. When wearing a White Sox jacket, he toss out the ceremonial first pitch at the All-Star Game in 2009. He is also a Chicago Bears football fan, but in his youth and adolescence, he was a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers and cheered for them in Super Bowl XLIII, 12 days after he assumed office as president. In 2011, Obama welcomed the 1985 Chicago Bears to the White House; the team had not visited the White House since losing in 1986 due to the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy. He plays basketball, a sport in which he competed as a member of his high school's varsity team, and he's left-handed.

In 2005, the Obama family converted from a Hyde Park, Chicago condo to a $1.6 million house (equivalent to $2.2 million in 2021) in neighboring Kenwood, Chicago. Because of Rezko's subsequent indictment and conviction on political corruption allegations that were unrelated to Obama, the acquisition of a nearby lot and the selling of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer, campaign donor, and friend Tony Rezko attracted widespread media attention.

The net worth of Obama in December 2007 stood at $1.3 million (equivalent to $1.7 million in 2021). The 2009 tax return revealed a household income of $5.5 million, up from $4.2 million in 2007 and $1.6 million in 2005, mainly due to book sales. On his 2010 income of $1.7 million, he donated 14 percent to non-profit organizations, including $131,000 to Fisher House Foundation, a charity assisting wounded veterans' families, allowing them to live near where the veteran's medical services are located. According to Obama's 2012 financial report, he may be worth up to $10 million.

In his adult life, Obama converted to Protestantism. In The Audacity of Hope, he said he "was not born in a religious household." He portrayed his mother, who was raised by non-religious parents, as being detached from faith in certain ways, but "in many ways, the most spiritually awakened individual"... "I've never known" and "a lonely witness for secular humanism" are two of my secular humanism. By the time his parents met, he described his father as a "confirmed atheist" and his stepfather as "a man who sees religion as not particularly helpful." Obama explains how, while working with black churches as a community organizer in his twenties, he learned "the power of the African-American religious tradition to spark social change."

"I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian," Obama told Christianity Today in January 2008. I believe in Jesus Christ's redemptive death and resurrection. "I believe that faith leads me to be free of sin and live for ever." On September 27, 2010, Obama released a statement expressing his religious convictions, saying: "I am proud to be in charge of his faith."

Jeremiah Wright, a Trinity United Church of Christ minister, was born in October 1987 and became a member of Trinity in 1992. During Obama's first presidential campaign in May 2008, he resigned from Trinity after some of Wright's remarks were criticized. Since moving to Washington, D.C., in 2009, the Obama family has attended many Protestant churches, including Shiloh Baptist Church and St. John's Episcopal Church, as well as Everest Chapel at Camp David, but the families do not attend worship on a regular basis.

He said in 2016 that he gets inspiration from a few items that remind him "of all the wonderful people I've encountered along the way." I'm not superstitious, so it's not like I believe I'm actually have them on me at all times." The items, which include rosary beads gifted to him by Pope Francis, a copy of the Hindu deity Hanuman, a small Buddha statue from Ethiopia, a monk's gift to him, and a metal poker chip that used to be a motorcyclist in Iowa's lucky charm.

Legal career

He joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 13-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic growth, where he served as an associate from 1993 to 1996, then as counsel from 1996 to 2004. In 1994, he was listed as one of the lawyers in Buycks-Roberson vs. Citibank Fed. Sav. C 4094 (N.D. Ill.) The bank of C 4094 (N.D. Ill.) Selma Buycks-Roberson, the lead plaintiff, brought the class action lawsuit in 1994, claiming that Citibank Federal Savings Bank was unlawfully employed in conduct barred under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Housing Act. The case was decided out of court. The final decision was released on May 13, 1998, with Citibank Federal Savings Bank agreeing to pay attorney fees.

Obama served on the boards of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago from 1994 to 2002, the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project and the Joyce Foundation. From 1995 to 1999, he served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002 as the founding president and chairman of the board of directors. In 2007, Obama's law license became inoperative.

Legislative career

In 1996, Obama was elected into the Illinois Senate, replacing Democratic State Senator Alice Palmer of Illinois' 13th District, which, at the time, spanned Chicago South Side communities from Hyde Park–Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn. Once elected, Obama received bipartisan support for legislation that reformed ethics and health care reforms. He sponsored a bill that increased tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and pushed for increased subsidies for childcare. As co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules in 2001, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan limits and predatory mortgage lending laws aimed at preventing home foreclosures.

He was re-elected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse Yehudah in the general election, and was re-elected again in 2002. In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary election in Illinois's 1st congressional district to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.

When Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority in January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. He sponsored and led to bipartisan passage of legislation to track race of drivers detained by requiring police to track the identity of drivers they arrested, as well as legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping homicide interrogations. During his 2004 general election bid for the Senate, police representatives lauded Obama for his active involvement with police agencies in the introduction of death penalty reforms. Following his election to the Senate in November 2004, Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004.

Obama ordered a survey in May 2002 to determine his chances in the upcoming 2004 U.S. Senate election. By August 2002, he established a campaign committee, started raising funds, and lined up political media consultant David Axelrod. In January 2003, Obama officially declared his candidacy.

Obama was a early critic of the George W. Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq. On October 2, 2002, the day President Bush and Congress agreed on a joint resolution authorizing the Iraq war, Obama spoke out against the war. In March 2003, he spoke at another anti-war rally and told the audience, "it's not too late" to end the war.

Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald and his Democratic successor Carol Moseley Braun's decision not to run in the primary election resulted in wide-open Democratic and Republican primary races involving 15 candidates. Obama won in an unexpected landslide in March 2004, which overnight made him a rising star in the national Democratic Party, and resulted in the reissue of his memoir, Dreams From My Father. In July 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which attracted nine million viewers. His address was well-received, and boosted his standing within the Democratic Party.

In June 2004, Obama's most likely challenge in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race. Alan Keyes accepted the Republican nomination to replace Ryan six weeks later. Obama gained 75% of the vote in November 2004, the largest margin of victory for a Senate candidate in Illinois history. He served in 92 of the state's 102 counties, including some where Democrats traditionally do not do well.

On January 3, 2005, Obama was first elected as a senator and became the first Senate representative of the Congressional Black Caucus. He introduced two initiatives that bore his name: Lugar–Obama, which expanded the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction scheme to conventional weapons; and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a government search engine. Senator Obama and Senator Tom Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain introduced a follow-up law on June 3, 2008: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in the Federal Spending Act of 2008. He also sponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.

President Bush signed the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Protection, and Democracy Promotion Act in December 2006, marking the first federal law to be introduced with Obama as the country's primary sponsor. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act was passed into law by Senator Feingold and Senator Feingold in January 2007.

Later in 2007, Obama proposed an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to include safeguards for veteran military discharges in accordance with personality. In the spring of 2008, this bill was unanimously accepted in the Senate. He sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act, which was never approved nor later included in the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010; and co-sponsored legislation to minimize threats of nuclear terrorism. In addition, Obama sponsored a Senate revision to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, providing one year of employment insurance for family members of soldiers with combat-related injuries.

Before December 2006, Obama served on Senate Committees on Foreign Relations, Environment, and Veterans' Affairs. He departed the Environment and Public Works Committee in January 2007 and began new positions with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Governmental Affairs. He served as Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa. He spoke with Mahmoud Abbas before Abbas became President of the Palestinian National Authority and delivered a speech at the University of Nairobi in which he condemned internal corruption in Kenya.

On November 16, 2008, Obama resigned from his Senate seat to concentrate on the president's transition period.

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