Biography of Barack Obama - Research Paper Example

Barack Obama Synopsis Born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961, Barack Obama is the 44th and the United States President currently. Before joining politics, Obama was a civil-rights lawyer and a teacher. Upon joining politics, he ran for the post of Senator in Chicago, Illinois, where he successfully clinched the senate in the year 1996. He served as a senator from 1997 to 2004, after which he declared his interest to run for the presidency of the United States. In 2008, he clinched the United States Presidency on a Democratic Party Ticket defeating his challenger John McCain of the Republican Party. He again won on his re-election bid in 2012, defeating Mitt Romney in a tightly contested race. President Obama is continuing with his policy enactments to tackle health care and economic constraints facing the United States. Early Childhood Life He was born Barack Hussein Obama II, on the August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His Mother, Ann Dunham was born and bred in Wichita Kansas, a place where her father was a worker in the oilrigs. Dunham’s father, Stanley, joined the army after the Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor to serve in the army across Europe. Her mother, Madelyn got a job with the bomber assembly line. When the war ended, Dunham’s parents bought a house through the Federal Housing Program after studying the G.I. Bill, and after moving from place to place the finally settled in Hawaii. Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr a citizen of Kenyan descent was born in Luo Nyanza his ancestral home. He grew up looking after goats in Kenya, Africa and after striving hard in his studies, he secured a scholarship to pursue his further studies in Hawaii. Obama Sr. met Ann Dunham while pursuing his studies at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. They met in a Russian in the University after which they got married on February 2, 1961 in Wailuku, Maui and Barack was born six months later. President Obama did not have the opportunity to bond with his father during his childhood years. When Barack was still young of age as a born baby, his father Obama Sr. moved to Massachusetts to pursue his Degree in Ph.D. at Harvard University. Months later, his parents separated officially and afterwards divorced in March of 1964, when Barack was only 2years old. After the divorce, his father moved back to his ancestral home of Kenya in 1965. His Mother, Ann Dunham later got married to Lolo Soetoro an East-West center student from Indonesia, in 1965. After a year, they relocated to Jakarta in Indonesia, where Maya Soetoro Barack’s half sister was born. While in Indonesia, Barack went to several local schools that spoke Indonesian as a language. He attended St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School for two years and later Besuki Public School for one and half years. He also attended a supplementary English language school called Calvert School. After a batch of incidents that took place in Indonesia, Dunham was afraid of her son’s safety and education, upon which she decided to send Barack back to Hawaii to reside with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham when he was 10 years of age. Excellence in School He managed to secure a scholarship and he joined Punahou School from fifth grade to his last grade in high school in 1979. Dunham and her daughter, Barack’s sister later moved to back to join Barack in Hawaii. While in Punahou Academy, a private preparatory school, he not only excelled in basketball as a co-curricular activity, but also graduated with academic honors in1979. Being the one of the only three African-American students in school, Barack was conscious about racism and the perceived nature it played in the African American Community. He explained how hard he fought and struggled to match the social portrayal of his biracial culture and his self-sense, and I quote, “I began to notice there was nobody like me in the Sears, Roebuck Christmas catalog…and that Santa was a White man,” he said. “I went to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror with all my senses and limbs seemingly intact, looking the way I had always looked, and wondered if something was wrong with me.” His father’s absence also dealt him major blow while growing up since, he only saw his father once in 1971, in Hawaii when his father visited in a short stunt, after he divorced his mother. In 1981, his Father got involved in a car accident, which cost him his legs, confining him to a wheelchair and eventually losing his job too. In 1982, while travelling in Nairobi, Obama Sr was involved in another tragic car accident however, this time he did not survive the crash. He died on 24 November 1982. Barack explains that during the time of his father’s death he remained a myth to him since, he had spent less time or merely no time with his paternal father. Upon his completion in high school, he joined Occidental College in Los Angeles where he studied for two years, later transferring to Columbia University in New York where he graduated with a degree in political science in 1983. He proceeded to join the business sector where he worked for two years before moving to Chicago in 1985. In Chicago, he worked as a community organizer for low-income residents in Roseland, South Side. Law Career President Obama returned to the ancestral of his father in Kenya, in 1988 after he joined Harvard Law School. He met Michelle Robinson, a law associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin the next year. Ms. Robinson became Barack’s adviser during his internship at summer in the firm. After not so long, the two began dating. The couple’s first kiss was outside of a shopping center in Chicago. As a commemoration there was a plaque installed decades later in August 2012. In Harvard, Obama became the first African-American elected editor of the Harvard Law Review, in February 1990. In 1991, Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. After graduating from law school, he returned to Chicago as a practice lawyer on civil rights together with fellow lawyers Milner, Barnhill and Garland to establish a law firm. During his part time work he taught at the University of Chicago Law School, from 1992-2004, where he started as a lecturer and later as a professor. During Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns, Obama helped in organizing voter registration drives. Obama and Michelle married in October 3, 1992 after which they relocated to Kenwood, South Side of Chicago. They welcomed two daughters later in their years: Malia who was born in 1998 and Sasha born in 2001. Politics Upon joining politics in 1995, Obama published an autobiography entitle Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. The book received a major boost when kef figures such as Toni Morrison praised it. Since then, it is reprinted in ten different languages inclusive of Chinese, Hebrew and Swedish. The advocacy portrayed in his book propelled him to run for the Illinois Senate Seat, which he clinched in 1996 on a Democratic Party seat. In his tenure as a senator, he worked with members from both sides of the divide, in drafting legislations on ethics, health care and elementary educational programs. He became Chair of the Illinois Senate’s Health and Human services committee. In 2001 after the 9/11 terror attacks, Obama became a fierce critic of President George .W. Bush’s policy to launch attacks on the people of Iraq. He was a still a Senator when he opposed the use of excessive force towards the people of Iraq at a rally in Chicago Federal Plaza in the October of 2002. Senate career After a run of encouragement from the society and people of the United States, Obama ran for the Senate seat that became vacant by Republican Peter Fitzgerald. On a Democratic Party ticket, in 2004, he won the primaries with a resounding 52 percent defeating his two challengers Blair Hull a multinational millionaire business mogul, and Daniel Hynes the Comptroller of Illinois. During that summer, he delivered a keynote speech at a Democratic National Convention in 2004 in support of John Kerry’s presidential bid. After that convention that took place in Boston, he returned to Chicago to continue with his campaign and boost his bid for the Senatorial seat in Illinois. His main challenger a Republican by the name Jack Ryan, pulled out of the race after, a series of scandals in his private sex life became public courtesy of his ex-wife Jeri Ryan. Alan Keyes nomination in place of Ryan took place and he accepted. After a series of televised debates on about their differing polices, Obama defeated Keyes in what became the most massive electoral victory in the History of Illinois. Obama managed seventy percent of the as opposed to that of his opponent Alan Keyes who registered a low figure of twenty-seven percent. Obama became the third African-American elect as Senator in the history of United States. Sworn into office, he took over in January 4, 2005 and together with Richard Lugar a Republican Senator for Indiana, they worked on a bill that was to see the destruction of weapons of mass destruction in Europe and specifically Russia. Presidential Election-2008 Obama caught the American headlines when he declared he would be vying for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He squared it out in a grueling tight battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Senator for New York and the former first lady. He defeated Clinton on 3 June 2008 in the Democratic nominee race. Clinton declared her support for Obama for the remaining time of his campaign for presidency. Obama went on to defeat John McCain the Republican Presidential Candidate with 52.7 percent against his of 45.7 percent, clinching the top seat to become the 44th president of America and the first African-American to occupy the highest office on land. His running mate Joe Biden the Senator for Delaware became his Vice president in his inauguration in 20 January 2009. During his first hundred days in office, he carried a complete overhaul of the foreign policy in America. He strengthened ties and relations with states from Europe, Russia and China. He also reached the dialogue point with Iran Venezuela and Cuba. As time progressed, he urged allies to support the stimulus of economic package. He set the date of which additional 21,000 troops were to join Afghanistan and the date at which troops were to leave Iraq to be August 2010. In more of his commitment, he confronted the pirates at the Somalia Coast and helped the country fight swine flu. Upon realizing his efforts, the Nobel Committee in Norway awarded him with the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. President Obama addressed his first State of Nation Speech in January 27, 2010. His speech contained issues to do with economic constraints, proposal for larger banking fees, freezing of the government expenditure in 2010and disputing Supreme Court is ruling on the reversing of a law regulating financial campaign spending. He urged the people of America to start focusing on positive issues that would help the country and not basing much of their time talking about re-election. He took the Republicans to task when he accused its members of sabotaging most of the laws proposed. He also castigated the Republicans for not pushing aggressively for the laws to get past the debating stages. He also said that despite the criticism he received from every comer of the country, he helped the country greatly and still wanted to focus in pushing America in forging and beating the hard economic times they were enduring as a nation. During the second phase of his first term in office, he faced a number of rising impediments as well as a number of victories. In March 2010, he signed into law the Affordable Care Act, a health care reform plan initiated by him. The plan initiated was to help solidify the rights of the consumers in providing insurance covers that many could afford, and gain access to improved medical care. His opponents opposed his plans of the “Obamcare” as they referred to it, as an initiative that would cost the country’s budget more and even leading to the violation of the constitution. On economic issues, President Obama strived hard to lift the country’s economy from a state of turmoil to an easy flowing country in terms of economy. In 2011, he signed into effect the Budget Control Act to prevent the government from carrying out any defaulting activities in relation to financial records. The law was to help address and provide solutions to the country’s economic and fiscal challenges. His military intervention on security issues during his first term as a president has seen the participation of gay in the army. His green light on the invasion of terrorists in Pakistan led to the capturing and killing of al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden in an operation by the U.S Navy SAELs. Re-Election 2012 During his re-election campaigns, he adopted similar strategies to the ones he used in 2008 by focusing on initiatives based at the grassroots level. The inclusion of Celebrity figures in his Campaigns helped in raising funds used in his campaign kitty. He was re-elected in November 2012, defeating his rival Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan both of the Republican Party as Presidential candidate and running mate respectively Works Cited Ahuja, Sunil, and Robert E. Dewhirst. The road to Congress 2004. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2005. Print. Gaur, Sanjay. Barack Obama. New Delhi: Book Enclave, 2009. Print. Maraniss, David. Barack Obama: the story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. Print. McClelland, Ted. Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the making of a Black president. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010. Print. Obama, Barack. Dreams from my father: a story of race and inheritance. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004. Print. Obama, Barack, and Barack Obama. The audacity of hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American dream. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006. Print. Scott, Janny. A singular woman: the untold story of Barack Obama's mother. New York: Riverhead Books, 2011. Print. Read More