Skip to content

Barack Obama Biography

Barack Obama

Also known as: Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.

Birth: August 4, 1961 in Hawaii, United States
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: African American
Occupation: politician, Lawyer
Source: Biography Resource Center Online. Gale, 2004.
Updated: 10/06/2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Awards
Biographical Essay
Further Readings
Source Citation
Updates

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

Barack Obama was a state senator from Illinois when he won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in March of 2004. When he won the seat, the charismatic politician became only the third African American to serve in the Senate since Reconstruction. His selection as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention that July confirmed his status as a rising star. After only two years in the Senate, Obama announced he was running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. He upset fellow senator Hillary Clinton to win the long, dramatic race for the nomination and become the first black presidential candidate nominated by a major party.

Had International Upbringing

Obama was born in Hawaii. His father was a black man from Kenya, his mother a white woman from Kansas who had moved to Honolulu with her parents. Obama’s father left the family to attend Harvard and eventually returned to Kenya, where he worked as a government economist. His mother’s second husband was an Indonesian oil manager, and Obama lived in that country from the ages of six to ten. Afterward, he went back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents.

Although Obama’s father only visited him once after he left, the son grew up with stories of his father’s brilliant mind. Obama honed his own mind at Hawaii’s top prep academy, Punahou School. From there, Obama went to Columbia University, where he became interested in community activism. After graduating in 1983, he moved to Chicago to spend three years as a community organizer on the city’s poverty-stricken South Side.

Obama’s intellect, drive, and social conscience led to his decision to become a lawyer. He went to Harvard Law School, where he became the first African-American president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. Upon his graduation (magna cum laude) in 1991, Obama shunned offers of prominent law firms and impressive clerkships in order to practice civil rights law in Chicago. He also took a position teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. Soon the idealistic young attorney became involved in politics.

Encouraged the Politics of Unity

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, representing the 13th District as a Democrat. His work there included writing landmark legislation to stop racial profiling and sponsoring a bill to expand medical coverage for uninsured children. He also developed a reputation for an inclusive style that eschewed mud-slinging and gained the admiration of his opponents. Republican state Senator Kirk Dillard told William Finnegan of the New Yorker, “Obama is an extraordinary man. His intellect, his charisma. He’s to the left of me on gun control, abortion. But he can really work with Republicans.”

In March of 2004, Obama took his efforts to connect with all kinds of people to the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. His message apparently resounded with voters, as he won a surprising 53 percent of the vote–including support from white blue-collar workers. Obama explained his appeal across demographic lines to Bob Herbert of the New York Times. While admitting there are differences among people, Obama said there is also “a set of core values that bind us together as Americans.” His message continued to resonate with voters, and Obama easily won the general election, becoming only the third African-American U.S. Senator since Reconstruction.

The Democratic Party also noted Obama’s ideas and success, and invited him to be the keynote speaker at its national convention in July 2004. Despite his intelligence, ambition, and broad appeal, simple civility distinguished Obama from many of his political peers. He told Herbert of New York Times, “There’s a certain tone in politics that I aspire to that allows me to disagree with people without being disagreeable.”

Distinguished Senator, Presidential Candidate

Obama continued to attract attention while serving in the Senate due to his charisma, drive, and desire to find common ground with political opposites. From nearly the moment he entered the office, he was asked if he would run for president in 2008. Obama did not commit right away, but served his constituents and described himself and his philosophy in his memoir Dreams from My Father (originally published in 1995, but re-published in 2004) and his 2006 best-seller The Audacity of Hope.

In February of 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president. Obama immediately began campaigning in Iowa. Though he was still relatively unknown compared to opponents Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, Obama made inroads and his campaign gained momentum throughout the year and into primary and caucus season. Obama won the Iowa caucuses, and though he lost in New Hampshire, he made steady gains throughout January 2008.

By February 2008, Edwards had dropped out of the race, and Obama continued to win key primaries and caucuses over Clinton. He did well on Super Tuesday, then won at least ten straight primaries and causes held after that date. Obama succeeded on the fundraising front as well, averaging one million dollars in donations per day. Obama emerged as the frontrunner, leading Clinton in the delegate count, after February 19 primaries in Wisconsin and Hawaii.

When asked about the outcome of his candidacy, Obama was happy he ran on his terms. He told Richard Wolffe of Newsweek, “I feel calm. … Because this is the campaign I always wanted to run. If it doesn’t work, it’s not because of the organization we built or the respectful tone we set.”

Obama’s battle with Clinton lasted until the final primaries on June 3, when he secured the necessary delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination. The marathon campaign had set new records in the number of voters participating and in fundraising totals. But its greatest historical importance was the smashing of a racial barrier. Obama’s victory made him the first African-American nominated for president by a major party. Obama selected Joseph Biden–a seasoned senator from Delaware who had campaigned for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination himself–as his vice-presidential running mate.

At the August 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, Hillary Clinton urged her supporters to shift their loyalty to Obama. Supportive speeches from other prominent Democrats, including an ailing but triumphant Ted Kennedy, and a jubilant Bill Clinton, provided the convention with energy and a singular purpose. On August 28, 2008, Obama accepted the nomination as his party’s candidate for president. His speech, given 45 years to the day after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C., was a personal and historic triumph, watched with interest by America and the world.

Rallied by his campaign slogan, “The Change We Need,” Obama took the lead in polls in late September and early October as the Wall Street economic crisis dominated the news. Though both Obama and his Republican opponent, U.S. Senator John McCain, expressed qualified support for the Bush Administration’s proposed $700 billion plan to aid the financial system, polls showed voters tended to prefer Obama’s economic judgment and response to the crisis. “This is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain –the theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most and somehow prosperity will trickle down,” Obama said in his first debate with McCain on September 26 (as quoted by Michael Cooper and Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times). During the debate, the candidates also clashed over spending and foreign policy, with McCain accusing Obama of supporting pork-barrel spending and both candidates questioning each other’s judgment over the Iraq war, which McCain supported and Obama opposed.

UPDATES

10/6/2008: On October 4, 2008, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin made remarks suggesting a link between Obama and a former anti-war radical from the early 1970s. Obama’s campaign spokesman called the comments “offensive,” and suggested the accusation was designed to draw attention away from America’s current financial crisis. Source: CNN.com, <http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/04/palin.obama/index.html?iref=newssearch>, October 6, 2008.

AWARDS

“40 under 40″ award,Crain’s Chicago Business, 1993.

FURTHER READINGS

Periodicals

  • Economist, February 16, 2008.
  • Grand Rapids Press, July 15, 2004.
  • Jet, March 15, 2004.
  • Newsweek, July 5, 2004; January 14, 2008.
  • New York Times, June 4, 2004; April 8, 2007; June 4, 2008; September 26, 2008; September 27, 2008; October 2, 2008.
  • Time, October 23, 2006.

Online

SOURCE CITATION

“Barack Obama.” Biography Resource Center Online. Gale, 2004.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC

Document Number: K1650004274

Posted on: October 8, 2008, 11:22 am Category: Uncategorized

By: admin

Comments Off

0 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.