Early life and career of Barack Obama

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The Barack Obama series
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Early life and career · (Memoir)
Illinois Senate career
U.S. Senate career
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Political positions

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. (1936–1982) (born in Nyangoma-Kogelo, Bondo District, Nyanza Province, Kenya,[1] of Luo ethnicity) and Ann Dunham (1942–1995) (born in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas).[2][3]

Childhood through high school

Obama (right) with his father in Hawaii. ca. 1971.
Obama (right) with his father in Hawaii. ca. 1971.

Throughout his early years, Obama was known at home and at school as "Barry".[4] Obama's parents met while both were attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student.[5] They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.[6] His father received a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics from Harvard University, then returned to Kenya, where he became a finance minister before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.[7][8] His mother married another foreign student, Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967.[9] 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, where he received weekly lessons in that Christian faith, although he was registered by his family as a Muslim, his father's stated religion.[10][11] When his family moved to a new neighborhood, Menteng,[12] he attended the secular, government-run SDN Menteng 1 school for his fourth year, and received similar weekly lessons in Islam and the Qur'an.[12][10][13][14][15] 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.[13] 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.[4] Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from the fifth grade until his graduation in 1979.[16] 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.[17]

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.[8] 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."[18] The book describes his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.[19] He wrote that he used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind".[20] Some of his fellow students at Punahou 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."[21]

College and early career

After high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years.[22] He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.[23] Obama received his Bachelor of Arts in 1983, then worked at Business International Corporation and New York Public Interest Research Group before moving to Chicago to take a job as a community organizer.[24] As the $13,000 a year Director of the Developing Communities Project,[25] a faith-based community-organizing agency on Chicago's far south side, funded by an arm of the Catholic Church and overseen by a coalition of black churches,[26] he worked with the low-income residents of Chicago's Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development to counteract the dislocation and massive unemployment caused by the closing and downsizing of southeast Chicago steel plants.[27][28][29][30] Obama has called this experience "the best education I ever had" and cites it as one of the reasons he would make a good president.[31]

It was around this time that Obama having seen first hand Christianity in action experienced what he later characterized as a spiritual awakening and joined the United Church of Christ.[citation needed]

Concluding that community organizing was not effective enough to solve major domestic problems,[32] Obama applied to Harvard Law School, which he entered in 1988.[33] In 1990 Obama was the first black person in the 104-year history of the Harvard Law Review to be elected president of the independent student group responsible for the journal.[7] Obama used his prominence on campus to draw attention to the issue of faculty diversity.[34] He completed his J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1991.[35] The president of the Harvard Law Review usually goes on to serve as a clerk for a judge on the United States court of appeals for a year, and then as a clerk for an associate justice of the Supreme Court.[7] Instead, Obama returned to Chicago to direct a voter registration drive that resulted in voter registration in Chicago's 19 predominantly black wards outnumbering those in the city's 19 predominantly white ethnic wards for the first time in Chicago's history, by 676,000 to 526,000. More than half a million blacks went to the polls in Chicago, and Chicago magazine hailed Obama as "a new political star".[36]

As an associate attorney with Miner Barnhill & Galland (fka Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland) from 1993 to 2003, Obama spent about 70% of the time representing community organizers, discrimination claims, and voting rights cases,[37] with the rest being spent on real estate transactions, filing incorporation papers and defending clients against minor lawsuits.[38] Most of his work involved drawing up briefs, contracts, and other legal documents, generally as a junior associate on legal teams.[38] This included a successful lawsuit by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) that forced the state of Illinois to implement the Motor Voter Act, an appeals brief for a whistleblower who sued Cook County Hospital and the Hektoen Institute for Medical Research for wrongful termination, and a suit that forced the city of Chicago to redraw the ward boundaries that the city council had drawn up following the 1990 census.[37] He also appeared in court to defend a developer against charges it was failing to provide heat to tenants, represented a nonprofit corporation against a lawsuit by a low-income woman who wanted the corporation to pay for baby-sitting, and put in six hours working on taxpayer-supported building rehabilitation loans for Rezmar Corp.[38][39] owned by Daniel Mahru and political fundraiser Tony Rezko, who has raised a total of over $250,000 for Obama's various political campaigns[40] and is now indicted on charges unrelated to his association with Obama.[41]

Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.[42] From 1992 to 1996, Obama held the title of Lecturer, and from 1996 to 2004 he was a Senior Lecturer.[43] The University of Chicago Law School has referred to Obama as a professor, and stated in a press release, "Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track."[43]

References

  1. ^ About Kenya / Nyanza / Bondo. information.go.ke. The Ministry of Information and Communications, Government of Kenya. Retrieved on 2008-02-26. But Nyangoma-Kogelo was a part of Siaya District at the time of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.'s birth.
  2. ^ Gov. Kathleen Sebelius Endorses Barack Obama - January 29, 2008 - Obama Press Office via businesswire via reuters.com
  3. ^ "Meet Barack", BarackObama.com. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  "Saving the World in His Spare Time", The Economist, January 12, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-02-02.  See also: Obama (1995), Chapter 1.
  4. ^ a b Scharnberg, Kirsten; Kim Barker. "The Not-So-Simple Story of Barack Obama's Youth", Chicago Tribune, March 25, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-14. 
  5. ^ Obama (1995), pp. 9–10. For book excerpts, see "Barack Obama: Creation of Tales", East African, November 1, 2004. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  6. ^ Obama (1995), pp. 125–126. See also: Jones, Tim. "Obama's Mom: Not Just a Girl from Kansas", Chicago Tribune, March 27, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  7. ^ a b c Butterfield, Fox. "First Black Elected to Head Harvard's Law Review", New York Times, February 6, 1990. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  See also: Kantor, Jodi. "In Law School, Obama Found Political Voice", New York Times, January 28, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  8. ^ a b Merida, Kevin. "The Ghost of a Father", Washington Post, December 14, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  See also: Ochieng, Philip. "From Home Squared to the US Senate: How Barack Obama Was Lost and Found", East African. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  Obama (1995), pp. 5–11 and 62–71. In August 2006, Obama flew his wife and two daughters from Chicago to join him in a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya. Gnecchi, Nico. "Obama Receives Hero's Welcome at His Family's Ancestral Village in Kenya", Voice of America, August 27, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  See also: Cose, Ellis. "Walking the World Stage", Newsweek, September 11, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  Wrong, Michela. "Africa: Kenya Glimpses a New Kind of Hero", New Statesman, September 11, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  9. ^ Obama's stepfather and Ann Dunham divorced in the late 1970s, and he died of a liver ailment in 1987. Fornek, Scott. "Lolo Soetoro", Chicago Sun-Times, September 9, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  They had one daughter together, Maya Soetoro, Obama's half-sister. On his father's side, Obama has two half-sisters and five surviving half-brothers. Sheridan, Michael; Sarah Baxter. "Secrets of Obama Family Unlocked", Sunday Times (UK), January 28, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  See also: Obama (1995), Chapter 2 and Chapters 15–19 (Part 3: Kenya).
  10. ^ a b Barker, Kim. "Obama Madrassa Myth Debunked", Chicago Tribune, March 25, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  11. ^ Staff writer. "Obama debunks claim about Islamic school", Associated Press, MSNBC, 2007-01-25. Retrieved on 2008-04-08. 
  12. ^ a b Williamson, Lucy. "Jakarta classmates recall 'Barry' Obama", BBC News, 2008-19-20. Retrieved on 2008-04-20. 
  13. ^ a b Watson, Paul. "Islam an unknown factor in Obama bid", Balitmore Sun, 2007-03-16. Retrieved on 2008-03-16. 
  14. ^ Scharnberg, Kirsten; Kim Barker. "The Not-So-Simple Story of Barack Obama's Youth", Chicago Tribune, March 25, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  Anderton, Trish. "Obama's Jakarta Trail", Jakarta Post, June 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. Archived from the original on 2007-06-26.  For Obama's published accounts of his schooling in Indonesia, see: Obama (1995), p. 154, and Obama (2006), p. 274.
  15. ^ Citing comments made by Indonesia's ambassador to the U.S., Time reported in December 2007 that Obama "still speaks passable Bahasa, the language spoken in Indonesia and Malaysia." Newton-Small, Jay. "Obama's Foreign-Policy Problem", Time, December 18, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-03. 
  16. ^ Obama writes: "For my grandparents, my admission into Punahou Academy heralded the start of something grand, an elevation in the family status that they took great pains to let everyone know." Obama (1995), Chapters 3 and 4. See also: Mann, Fred. "Kansas Roots Show in Obama, Say Relatives", Wichita Eagle, February 2, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-02-11. 
  17. ^ Obama (1995), Preface to the 2004 Edition, p. xi. See also: Suryakusuma, Julia. "Obama for President... of Indonesia", Jakarta Post, November 29, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  18. ^ Obama (1995), pp. 9–10.
  19. ^ Obama (1995), Chapters 4 and 5. See also: Serrano, Richard A. "Obama's Peers Didn't See His Angst" (paid archive), Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  20. ^ "Obama Gets Blunt with N.H. Students", Associated Press, Boston Globe, November 21, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  In Dreams from My Father, Obama writes: "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it." Obama (1995), pp. 93–94. For analysis of the political impact of the quote and Obama's more recent admission that he smoked marijuana as a teenager ("When I was a kid, I inhaled."), see: Romano, Lois. "Effect of Obama's Candor Remains to Be Seen", Washington Post, January 3, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  Seelye, Katharine Q. "Obama Offers More Variations From the Norm", New York Times, October 24, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  21. ^ Reyes, B. J. "Punahou Left Lasting Impression on Obama", Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 8, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  "As a teenager, Obama went to parties and sometimes sought out gatherings on military bases or at the University of Hawaii that were mostly attended by blacks."
  22. ^ "Oxy Remembers "Barry" Obama '83", Occidental College, January 29, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  See also: Gordon, Larry. "Occidental Recalls 'Barry' Obama" (paid archive), Los Angeles Times, January 29, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  23. ^ Boss-Bicak, Shira. "Barack Obama ’83: Is He the New Face of The Democratic Party?", Columbia College Today, January 2005. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  24. ^ Scott, Janny. "Obama's Account of New York Years Often Differs from What Others Say", New York Times, October 30, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  See also: Obama (1995), pp. 135–139.
  25. ^ Slevin, Peter. "For Clinton and Obama, a Common Ideological Touchstone", Washington Post, March 25, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-03-18. 
  26. ^ Wills, Christopher. "Obama's first lessons in politics came as Chicago community organizer", Examiner.com, February 24, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-18. 
  27. ^ Secter, Bob; John McCormick. "Portrait of a Pragmatist", Chicago Tribune, March 30, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  28. ^ Lizza, Ryan. "The Agitator: Barack Obama's Unlikely Political Education" (alternate link), New Republic, March 19, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  29. ^ Developing Communities Project, Inc.
  30. ^ De Zutter, Hank. "What makes Obama run?", Chicago Reader, December 8, 1995. Retrieved on 2008-03-18. 
  31. ^ Wills, Christopher. "Obama's first lessons in politics came as Chicago community organizer", Examiner.com, February 24, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-18. 
  32. ^ Bradford, Roderick J.. "Hiring Barack Obama", Busted Halo.com. Retrieved on 2008-03-18. 
  33. ^ Levenson, Michael; Jonathan Saltzman. "At Harvard Law, a Unifying Voice", Boston Globe, January 28, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.  See also: Heilemann, John. "When They Were Young", New York Magazine, October 22, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  34. ^ "What Harvard Taught Barack", 02138. Retrieved on 2008-03-18. 
  35. ^ Kodama, Marie C. "Obama Left Mark on HLS", Harvard Crimson, January 19, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. 
  36. ^ Reynolds, Gretchen. "Vote of Confidence", Chicago Magazine, January 1993. Retrieved on 2008-03-18. 
  37. ^ a b c Moran, Dan. "Obama's lawyer days: brief and not all civil rights", Los Angeles Times, 2008-04-08. Retrieved on 2008-04-15. 
  38. ^ "Obama and his Rezko ties", Associated Press, Chicago Sun-Times, April 23, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-03-30. 
  39. ^ Chris Fusco; David McKinney, Tim Novak, and Abdon M. Pallasch. "Obama explains Rezko relationship to Sun-Times", Chicago Sun-Times, March 16, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-16. 
  40. ^ Einhorn, Catrin. "In Developer's Trial, E-Mail Note Cites an Obama Role", New York Times, 2008-03-11. Retrieved on 2008-03-31. 
  41. ^ Pallasch, Abdon M. "Professor Obama was a Listener, Students Say", Chicago Sun-Times, February 12, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  42. ^ a b Statement Regarding Barack Obama. University of Chicago Law School. Retrieved on 2008-03-29.