$40,000,000
Barack Obama
Net Worth
Born in (City)
Wichita
Born in (Country)
United States
Date of Birth
04th December, 1961
Date of Death
-
Mother
Stanley Ann Dunham
Father
Barack Hussein Obama Sr.
Children
- Malia Obama
- Sasha Obama
About
Barack Obama is the first African American President of the United States, a well-known political leader, and a graduate of Harvard University. He is one of the most successful leaders of the 21st century, Barack Obama is a hardworking and intelligent man whose work ethic and immense ambition make him a perfect inspiration for you on your path to success.
Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was born on August 4, 1961, in Hawaii, to Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama Sr. The couple met at the University of Hawaii while attending a Russian class. They married on February 2, 1961, shortly after which Obama Jr. was born. Three years later the couple divorced and his father enrolled in Harvard University, after which he returned to Kenya. Obama’s father was not an eminent figure in his life. All he had was stories from his mother and grandparents. After his parents divorced, Obama’s mother married another foreign student from the university, Lolo Soetoro of Indonesia. Obama lived with his stepfather and his mother in Indonesia.
In Jarkata, Ann taught English to businesspeople, Lolo worked as a geologist. They did not have enough money to send Obama to an international school, but they did try to give him a good education. Every morning she would spend three hours teaching her son English before sending him to school. Ann was concerned about Obama’s education and she hence sent him to stay with his grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. He was enrolled at Hawaii’s prestigious Punahou School from fifth to graduation. He excelled at basketball and graduated with academic honors in 1979. As one of the only three black students at school, he became conscious of racism and what it meant to be an African American.
Early Life
Obama left Hawaii for college, enrolling first in the Occidental College, Los Angeles. In February 1981, he made his first public speech, calling for the Occidental to participate in the disinvestment from South Africa in response to that nation’s policy for apartheid. After two years he transferred to Columbia University in New York City, graduating with a degree in political science in 1983. He worked in the business sector for two years. He moved to Chicago in 1985, where he worked on the impoverished South Side as a community organizer for the low-income residents. His community organizer job gave him a deep immersion into the African American community’s life. Throughout his activity, Obama faced city bureaucracy and decided to obtain a degree in law.
In 1988, Obama enrolled at Harvard University, where he excelled as a student, graduating magna cum laude and winning election as president of the Harvard Law Review for the year, 1990-1991. He was the first African-American president in the long history of the law review. This drew Obama's widespread media attention. He also received a contract from Random House to write a book about race relations. The book,” Dreams from my Father”, was a personal memoir, focusing on Obama’s struggles growing up black in a white household, in the absence of his African American father.
Road to Success
Barack Obama served as a summer associate in Sidley Austin law firm in Chicago. Here he met Michelle Robinson, his future wife. After a four-year courtship, they married in1992 and settles down in Chicago’s racially integrated, middle-class Hyde Park. Their daughters Malia Ann(1998) and Natasha(2001) were born here. He practiced civil rights law at Miner, Barnhill, and Galland. He also taught constitutional law part-time at the University of Chicago Law School between 1992 and 2004, first as a lecturer and then a professor. He helped organize voter registration drives during Bill Clinton’s 1992, presidential campaign.
In 1996, Barack Obama launched his first campaign for political office, after district’s state senator, Alice Palmer, decided to run for Congress. With Palmer’s support, Obama announced his candidacy to replace her in the Illinois Legislature. When Palmer’s congressional campaign faltered, she decided to run for re-election instead. Obama refused to withdraw from the race and successfully challenge the validity of Palmer’s voter petitions and kept her name off the ballot. Obama’s communication skills and ability to establish business relationships with the senate’s colleagues aided him. When the Democrats won control of the Senate after the 2002 elections, Obama became a leading legislature passing about 300 bills that were meant to help the poor, senior citizens, children, and labor unions.
In 2000, Obama made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the US House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush. Obama lost the primaries to Rush by 30 percent of the margin point. Rush remained in the House, he was re-elected to his thirteenth consecutive term in 2016. Undeterred, he began to prepare for a 2004 race for the US Senate. He knew the incumbent Senator Peter Fitzgerald was unpopular and did not plan to run for reelection. Obama began assessing his prospects for the Senate win. After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Obama took an opposition stance to US President, George W Bush. Obama was still a state senate when he spoke against a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq during a rally at Chicago’s Federal Plaza in October 2002. By speaking out against Bush’s war policies, He set himself apart from the other leading candidates for the Democratic Senate nomination, as well as from the senate democrats.
Challenges
A political consultant, David Axelrod, who was famous among black candidates, consulted Obama who was encouraged by the poll numbers. In 2004, Obama assembled a coalition of African American and white liberals to win the Democratic Senate primary with 53 percent of the vote. He then moved toward the political center to wage his general election campaign against Republican nominee Jack Ryan. But, he was forced to drop out of the race when scandalous details of his divorce were made public. Obama won an easy victory against Ryan’s replacement, conservative Republican Alan Keyes. He won by 70 percent, the largest margin in the history of Senate elections in Illinois. That summer, he was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Obama emphasized the importance of unity and made veiled jabs at the Bush administration.
He was sworn into office on January 3, 2005. Obama partnered with Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indians on a bill that expanded efforts to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe and Russia. Obama also spoke out for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, pushed for alternate sources of energy development, and championed improved veteran’s benefits. The following year on October 17, 2006, his book,” The Audacity of Hope”, was published. The book became the number 1 bestseller in New York Times and Amazon.com.
Failures
On November 4, 2008 Obama won the elections with 52.9 percent against 45.7 percent Republican presidential nominee John Mc Cain. On January 20, 2009, Obama was sworn in as the President of the United States. When he took office, he inherited a global economic recession, two ongoing foreign wars and lowest ever international favorability rating for the United States. Obama was quick to act, to get the US economy back on track. He believed that ambitious financial reform, reinventing education and health care and alternative energy would have to be undertaken simultaneously, to bring down the national debt.
In his first 100 days in office, Obama expanded health care insurance for children and provide legal protection for woman seeking equal pay. Obama cut taxes for every American worker, small businesses and first time home buyers. He made quality and affordable health care for millions in US. Obama undertook a complete overhaul of America’s foreign policy. He reached out to improve relations with Europe, China and Russia and to open dialogue with Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. He gave an order to relocate additional 21000 troops to Afghanistan and set an August 2010 date for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for his efforts.
Achievements
Chairman's Award in 2005|Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album (Dreams from My Father) in 2006|Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Nonfiction The Audacity of Hope in 2007|Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album (The Audacity of Hope) in 2008
Quotes
- Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
- The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.
- A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.