Barack Obama Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Barack Obama - Essay Example It covers it covers many aspects of his life, starting from his birth in Hawaii to his relocation to Indonesia and back to Hawaii. It carries on with his life at Occidental College in Los Angeles, then at Columbia University in New York and finally at Harvard. It also examines Obama's life as a community organizer in Chicago. It then gives an account of Obama's political life from the days he served as an Illinois State Senator through to his days as a United States Senator and finally his decision to vie for the United States Presidency. The conclusion section highlights the main items of the paper and gives inferences where appropriate. It confirms the thesis of the paper. Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the US, was born on the 4th August 1961. Obama happens to the first ever African American president. Before the presidency, Obama served as a junior Senator in the United States Senate from the state of Illinois between January 2005 and November 2008. He later resigned after he was elected president. Obama graduated from both Harvard and Columbia Universities. While at Harvard Law School, Obama was the Harvard Law Review president, the first ever African American to hold the position. Before he earned his law degree, while in Chicago, Obama served as a community organizer. Between 1992 and 2004, Obama became an attorney of civil rights in Chicago. During the same period, he served as a constitutional law teacher at the University of Chicago's Law School. Obama served in the Illinois Senate for three terms between 1997 and 2004. In 2000, he bid for the House of Representatives seat but was unsuccessful. Later in 2004, Obama successfully ran for a senate seat in the Unites States Senate. Obama's victory amid a crowded field in 2004, together with his keynote speech at a Democratic National Convention made him a rising national figure. Obama's election to the US Senate in 2004 had the biggest margin in the history of Illinois. Obama began his race for the US presidency in February 2007. He won the primaries against Hillary Clinton in 2008 and won the party's nomination to become the first ever African American presidential candidate of a major party. Obama went ahead to beat the Republican Party flag bearer John McCain in the 2008 elections. His inauguration as president was held on the 20th January 2009. Background Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in the United States to Barack Obama Senior and Stanley Ann Dunham. Dunham was an English decent American from Wichita in Kansas. Barack Obama Senior was a Luo who came from Nyang'oma Kogelo village in Nyanza Province of Kenya. Obama Senior and Dunham first met at the University of Hawaii in Manoa during a Russian language class. Obama Senior, a foreign student, attended the university on scholarship. They married in February 1961, with Barack being born later the same year. Barack Obama's birth was announced in the Honolulu Star Bulletin and The Honolulu Advertiser. At the age of two years, Barack's parents separated and later divorced in 1964. Obama Senior returned to his home country, Kenya and only saw his son once before he met his death in a road accident in 1982. Dunham joined the University of Washington while living at Seattle in Capitol Hill with her son as a single mother (Ripley, 2008). She left Seattle together with her son in the 1962's summer and rejoined the University of Hawaii. After Dunham's separation with Obama Senior, she