short biography of barack obama

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a White mother and a Black father. His mother Ann Dunham was an anthropologist, and his father Barack Obama Sr. was an economist. They met while studying at the University of Hawaii. The couple divorced in 1964 and Obama Sr. returned to his native Kenya to work for the government. He rarely saw his son after this separation.

In 1967, Barack Obama moved with his mother to Jakarta, where he lived for four years. At the age of 10, he returned to Hawaii to be raised by his maternal grandparents while his mother completed fieldwork in Indonesia. After finishing high school, Obama went on to study at Occidental College , where he gave his first public speech—a call for the school to divest from South Africa in protest of the country's system of apartheid. In 1981, Obama transferred to Columbia University, where he graduated with a degree in political science and English literature.

In 1988, Obama began studying at Harvard Law School . He became the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990 and spent his summers working at law firms in Chicago. He graduated magna cum laude in 1991.

Michelle Obama / Twitter

Obama married Michelle LaVaughn Robinson—a lawyer from Chicago he met while he was working in the city—on October 3, 1992. Together they have two children, Malia and Sasha. In her 2018 memoir Becoming , Michelle Obama described their marriage as "a full-on merger, a reconfiguring of two lives into one, with the well-being of a family taking precedence over any one agenda or goal.” Barack supported Michelle when she chose to leave private law for public service, and she supported him when he decided to enter politics.

Career Before Politics

Upon graduating from Columbia University, Barack Obama worked at Business International Corporation and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group, a nonpartisan political organization. He then moved to Chicago and became director of the Developing Communities Project. After law school, Obama wrote his memoir, Dreams from My Father , which was widely acclaimed by critics and other writers, including Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison .

Obama worked as a community organizer and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for 12 years. He also worked as a lawyer during this same period. In 1996, Obama made his foray into political life as a member of the Illinois State Senate. He supported bipartisan efforts to improve health care and increase tax credits for child care. Obama was reelected to the State Senate in 1998 and again in 2002.

U.S. Senate

In 2004, Obama launched a campaign for U.S. Senate. He positioned himself as a progressive and an opponent of the Iraq War. Obama won a decisive victory in November with 70% of the vote and was sworn in as a U.S. senator in January 2005. As a senator, Obama served on five committees and chaired the European Affairs subcommittee. He sponsored legislation to expand Pell grants, provide support for victims of Hurricane Katrina, improve the safety of consumer products, and reduce homelessness among veterans.

By now, Obama was a national figure and a rising star in the Democratic Party, having delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. In 2006, Obama released his second book, The Audacity of Hope , which became a New York Times bestseller.

2008 Election

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Obama began his run for U.S. president in February 2007. He was nominated after a very close primary race against key opponent Hillary Clinton , a former U.S. senator from New York and a future U.S. secretary of state, who was also the wife of former president Bill Clinton . Obama chose then-Delaware Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate. The two campaigned on a platform of hope and change; Obama made ending the Iraq War and passing health care reform his primary issues. His campaign was notable for its digital strategy and fundraising efforts. With support from small donors and activists across the nation, the campaign raised a record $750 million. Obama's main opponent in the presidential race was Republican Sen. John McCain. In the end, Obama won 365 electoral votes and 52.9% of the popular vote.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Within the first 100 days of his presidency, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a piece of legislation designed to address the worst effects of the Great Recession. The Recovery Act was a stimulus package that injected about $800 billion into the economy through tax incentives for individuals and businesses, infrastructure investment, aid for low-income workers, and scientific research. Leading economists broadly agreed that this stimulus spending helped reduce unemployment and avert further economic challenges.

Obama's signature achievement—the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as "Obamacare")—was passed on March 23, 2010. The legislation was designed to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance by subsidizing those who meet certain income requirements. At the time of its passage, the bill was quite controversial . In fact, it came before the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2012 that it was not unconstitutional.

By the end of 2010, Obama had also added two new judges to the Supreme Court— Sonia Sotomayor , who was confirmed on August 6, 2009, and Elena Kagan , who was confirmed on August 5, 2010. Both are members of the court's liberal wing.

On May 1, 2011, Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, was killed during a Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan. This was a major victory for Obama, winning him praise across party lines. "The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda," Obama said in a public address to the nation. "Today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people."

2012 Reelection

Obama launched his campaign for reelection in 2011. His main challenger was Republican Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts. To make use of growing social networks like Facebook and Twitter, the Obama campaign hired a team of tech workers to build digital campaign tools. The election centered on domestic issues, including health care and Social Security, and in many ways was a referendum on the Obama administration's response to the Great Recession. In November 2012, Obama defeated Romney with 332 electoral votes and 51.1% of the popular vote.   Obama called the victory a vote for "action, not politics as usual," and promised to work on bipartisan proposals to improve the American economy.

Second Term

Sonya N. Hebert / The White House

During his second term as president, Obama focused on new challenges facing the country. In 2013, he organized a group to begin negotiations with Iran. An agreement was reached in 2015 in which the United States would lift sanctions and steps would be taken to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, Obama signed a series of executive orders designed to reduce gun violence. He also voiced support for more comprehensive background checks and a ban on assault weapons. In a press conference at the White House, Obama said, "If there is even one thing we can do to reduce this violence, if there is even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try."

In June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that marriage equality is protected under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. This was a major milestone in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Obama called the ruling a "victory for America."  

In July 2013, Obama announced that the United States had negotiated plans to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. The following year, he became the first American president to visit the country since Calvin Coolidge did so in 1928. The shift in U.S.-Cuba relations—dubbed the Cuban thaw—was met with approval by many political leaders around the world.

Obama also had a number of accomplishments in climate change and environmentalism in general. The Environmental Defense Fund noted his top accomplishments, stating that Obama:

• Made progress on the national climate: "His Clean Power Plan was the first-ever national limit on carbon pollution from its largest source," the EDF stated.
• Completed an international climate agreement: "(His) work with China led to a long-sought global agreement among 195 nations to reduce climate pollution," according to the EDF.
• Mandated cleaner cars and trucks: "Obama’s EPA moved on in his second term to tackling truck emissions, reining in methane leaks from the oil and gas industry and updating energy efficiency standards for home appliances," Marianne Lavelle wrote in a 2016 article published on the website Inside Climate News.

Additionally, the EDF noted, Obama mandated pollution limits on power plants, made clean-energy investments (such as in wind and solar power technology and companies); signed "the first major environmental law in two decades, passed with bipartisan support, fixing our broken chemical safety system;" established systems to increase sustainable agriculture, western water, and protect endangered species; implemented laws that reduced overfishing and led to a rebound of fisheries in U.S. waters; and designated 19 national monuments—"more than any of his predecessors"—thus preserving "260 million acres for future generations."

Facing Racism

In A Promised Land , a 768-page autobiography (the first volume in a planned two-volume set) published in November 2020 and covering his early years through most of his first term as president, Obama wrote surprisingly little about the racism he personally faced growing up and during his political career—except as it was experienced by Michelle and his daughters. But, reflecting on his experiences as a young man, Obama wrote that at one point in his presidency he reflected on:

"The multiple occasions when I'd been asked for my student ID while walking to the library on (Columbia University's) campus, something that never seemed to happen to my white classmates. The unmerited traffic stops while visiting certain 'nice' Chicago neighborhoods. Being followed around by department store security guards while doing my Christmas shopping. The sound of car locks clicking as I walked across the street, dressed in a suit and tie, in the middle of the day.

"Moments like these were routine among Black friends, acquaintances, guys in the barbershop. If you were poor, or working-class, or lived in a rough neighborhood, or didn't properly signify being a respectable Negro, the stories were usually worse."

Just a few of countless examples of racism that Obama faced over the years include:

The birther debate: Obama was dogged throughout his presidency by rumors that he was not an American by birth. Indeed, Donald Trump boosted his own rise to power by fueling this discredited rumor. The “birthers”—as the people spreading this rumor are known—say that he was born in Kenya. Although Obama’s mother was a White American and his father was a Black Kenyan national, his parents met and married in the United States, which is why the birther conspiracy has been deemed equal parts silly and racist.

Political caricatures: Before and after his presidential election, Obama was depicted as subhuman in graphics, email, and posters. He was portrayed as a shoeshine man, an Islamic terrorist, and a chimp, to name a few. The image of his altered face has been shown on a product called Obama Waffles in the manner of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben.

The “Obama is a Muslim” conspiracy: Much like the birther debate, the debate over whether Obama is a practicing Muslim appears to be racially tinged. While the president did spend some of his youth in the predominantly Muslim country of Indonesia, there’s no evidence that he has practiced Islam. In fact, Obama has said that neither his mother nor his father was particularly religious.

The racist tropes morphed into concerns over potential threats of physical violence and even assassination when Obama ran for president in 2008. "There were concerns about his security that were very real and very dark," David M. Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama's presidential campaigns said, referring to the increased racism and threats Obama faced after he won the Iowa Caucus in 2008 and become the frontrunner for the 2008 presidential nomination.

In the first installment of a television documentary series called "First Ladies," which covered the experiences of Michelle Obama, CNN noted that Obama and his family were "given a security detail earlier than any other presidential candidate in history." In that same segment, Van Jones, a CNN political commentator, stated:

"There was a resignation in the Black community, that you cannot rise up without being chopped down... Medgar Evers , Malcolm X, Dr. (Martin Luther) King (Jr.) , if you come from the Black community, almost every hero you read about was killed."

And, it wasn't only Barack who came under attack. After Michelle began to campaign for her husband, she had to withstand withering racist tropes—along with Barack. After the couple did a fist bump during one campaign stop, a number of people in the media, according to CNN, began to call the couple "jihadists," a derogatory term for a Muslim who advocates for or participates in a holy war waged on behalf of Islam. One television network began to refer to Michelle as Barack Obama's "baby mama," according to the CNN report. Marcia Chatelain, an associate professor at Georgetown University, noted:

"Michelle Obama was met with every single stereotype about African-American women magnified by a million."

According to the CNN report, and Michelle Obama, herself, in her autobiography, "Becoming," many people and those in the media began to use the "easy trope of the angry Black woman" to try to humiliate her. As Michelle Obama wrote about her experience on the campaign trail and after becoming first lady:

"I've been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an 'angry black woman.' I've wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most—is it 'angry' or 'black' or 'woman?'"

And the family only suffered more racism and threats once Obama was president. As Obama told NPR in 2015 referring to the racism he faced once he held the nation's highest office:

"If you are referring to specific strains in the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I’m different, I’m Muslim, I’m disloyal to the country, etc., which unfortunately is pretty far out there and gets some traction in certain pockets of the Republican Party, and that have been articulated by some of their elected officials, what I’d say there is that that’s probably pretty specific to me and who I am and my background, and that in some ways I may represent change that worries them."

Michelle Obama was more direct in describing the intense, daily onslaught of racism and threats the family faced during Barack's presidency. Michelle, and Barack in his biography "A Promised Land," talked about the sometimes daily threats and racist insults the family experienced, but Michelle was a particular target, singled out for insults. The Guardian , a British newspaper, reported in 2017 on what Michelle Obama told a crowd of 8,500:

"Asked which of the falling glass shards cut the deepest, she said: 'The ones that intended to cut,' referencing an incident in which a West Virginia county employee called her an 'ape in heels,' as well as people not taking her seriously because of her colour. 'Knowing that after eight years of working really hard for this country, there are still people who won’t see me for what I am because of my skin colour.'”

Key Speeches

Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0

Obama gave a number of important speeches during his two terms as president, Mark Greenberg and David M. Tait reprinted some of the key speeches, in the book, "Obama: The Historic Presidency of Barack Obama: 2,920 Days":

Victory speech: Obama told a crowd in Grant Park In Chicago on November 4, 2008, during his election night victory speech: "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible...tonight is your answer."

Inaugural address: Obama told a record 1.8 million people gathered in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2009: "(O)ur patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth."

On the death of Osama bin Laden: Obama announced bin Laden's death at the White House on May 3, 2011, stating: "On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood....On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family." Obama also announced: "Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against (a) compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (where bin Laden was living)....After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."

On marriage equality: Obama spoke in the White House rose garden on July 26, 2015, stating: "This morning, the Supreme Court recognized that the Constitution guarantees marriage equality." On the POTUS Twitter account, Obama added; "Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like everyone else."

On the Affordable Care Act: Obama addressed a crowd at Miami Dade College on October 20, 2016, six years after the passage of the act, telling listeners, "...never in American history has the uninsured rate been lower than it is today....It's dropped among women, among Latinos and African Americans, (and in) every other demographic group. It's worked."

On climate change: In a speech Obama gave at Georgetown University in June 2013, the president declared: "I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing. And that’s why, today, I'm announcing a new national climate action plan, and I'm here to enlist your generation's help in keeping the United States of America a leader—a global leader—in the fight against climate change. This plan builds on the progress that we've already made. Last year, I took office—the year that I took office, my administration pledged to reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions by about 17 percent from their 2005 levels by the end of this decade. And we rolled up our sleeves and we got to work. We doubled the electricity we generated from wind and the sun. We doubled the mileage our cars will get on a gallon of gas by the middle of the next decade."

On the Shoulders of Others

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Obama is the first Black man to not only be nominated by a major political party but also to win the presidency of the United States. Though Obama was the first to win the office, there were many other notable Black men, and women, who sought the office. US News & World Report compiled this list of just a few of the contenders:

Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman ever elected to the  U.S. Congress and represented the 12th congressional District of New York for seven terms. She ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1972, becoming the first Black person and the first Black woman to run for the office on a major party ticket, as well as the first woman to win delegates for a presidential nomination by a major party.

Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for president in the Democratic primary in 1984, becoming the second Black person to do so (after Chisholm), winning one-fourth of the votes and one-eighth of the convention delegates before losing the nomination to Walter Mondale. Jackson ran again in 1988 ran again, receiving 1,218 delegate votes but lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis. Though unsuccessful, Jackson's two presidential campaigns laid the groundwork for Obama to become president two decades later.

Lenora Fulani  "ran as an independent (in 1988) and was the first Black woman to appear on presidential ballots in all 50 states. She also ran in 1992," US News noted.

Alan Keyes "served in the (Ronald) Reagan administration (and) campaigned for the Republican nomination in 1996 and 2000," according to US News , adding that he "also lost to Barack Obama in their race for a Senate seat in 2004."

Carol Moseley Braun, a U.S. senator, "briefly sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004," US News wrote.

Rev. Al Sharpton , a "New York-based activist campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination" in 2004, US News reported.

Additionally, Frederick Douglass , a North American 19th-century Black activist and advocate for women's rights, ran for president in 1872 on the Equal Rights Party ticket.

Obama, in his run, campaigned as an agent of change. It may be too early to fully discuss Obama's legacy as of January 2021—more than four years after he left office. Elaine C. Kamarck, the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank based in Washington, D.C., was not glowing in her review of Obama, published in 2018:

"It becomes clearer every day that Barack Obama, a historic president, presided over a somewhat less than historic presidency. With only one major legislative achievement (Obamacare)—and a fragile one at that—the legacy of Obama’s presidency mainly rests on its tremendous symbolic importance and the fate of a patchwork of executive actions."  

But historians note that the very fact that Obama was the first Black man to hold the office of president of the United States, was a huge door-opener for the country. H.W. Brands, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, stated:

"The single undeniable aspect of Obama’s legacy is that he demonstrated that a Black man can become president of the United States. This accomplishment will inform the first line in his obituary and will earn him assured mention in every American history textbook written from now to eternity."  

However, there were negative, or unanticipated, consequences of Obama's election as the first Black U.S. president. Several studies have shown that as a result of Obama's election the public's perception of racism in the U.S. dropped, which, in turn, may have made it more difficult to approve funding or gain support for much-needed social programs. A study published in May 2009 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found:

"Americans may also use Obama’s victory as a justification for further legitimizing the current status hierarchy and for blaming Black Americans for their disadvantaged position in society....These justifications may result in the failure to examine structural aspects of society that lead to profound disadvantages for minorities (e.g., failing schools in predominately minority neighborhoods)."

A similar study, published in Public Opinion Quarterly , in May 2011, stated:

"A representative panel study of Americans interviewed immediately before and after the (2008) election reveals a roughly 10 percent decline in perceptions of racial discrimination. About one quarter of respondents revised their perceptions of discrimination downward."

Indeed, in the area of race in the United States, Obama has faced criticism that he did not do as much as he should, or could, have. Michelle Alexander in "The New Jim Crow, 10th Anniversary Edition," published in January 2020, said that Obama was:

"...a man who embraced the rhetoric (though not the politics) of the Civil Rights movement.... (and) it sometimes appeared that Obama was reluctant to acknowledge the depth and breadth of the structural changes required to address police violence and the prevailing systems of racial and social control."

Alexander noted that while Obama was the first sitting president to visit a federal prison and "oversee a drop in the federal prison population" (which she said is disproportionately represented by Black people, particularly Black men), he greatly increased deportations of undocumented immigrants and his administration oversaw a large expansion of facilities to detain these immigrants.

In response to these criticisms, Obama acknowledged the need for reforms in the criminal justice system and on racial equality in general. He told NPR's Steve Inskeep in 2016:

 "I—what I would say is that the Black Lives Matter movement has been hugely important in getting all of America to—to see the challenges in the criminal justice system differently. And I could not be prouder of the activism that has been involved. And it's making a difference."

But in terms of his own legacy on these issues, Obama argued the importance of understanding political realities when pushing for change:

"I'm constantly reminding young people, who are full of passion, that I want them to keep their passion, but they've got to gird for the fact that it takes a long time to get stuff done in this democracy."

Other historians note that Obama "brought stability to the economy, to the job market, to the housing market, to the auto industry and to the banks," as Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian and author of bestselling biographies, noted in an article in Time magazine.   Kearns also said that Obama brought "tremendous progress" to the LGBTQ+ community, and helped initiate an era of cultural change—which is a major legacy in and of itself.

Additional References

• Alexander, Michelle.  The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition . The New Press, 2020.
• “ Barack Obama - Key Events .”  Miller Center , 8 July 2020.
• Butterfield, Fox. “ First Black Elected to Head Harvard's Law Review .”  The New York Times , The New York Times, 6 Feb. 1990.
• Gaby, Keith. “ Ready to Defend Obamas Environmental Legacy? Top 10 Accomplishments to Focus On .”  Environmental Defense Fund , 12 Jan. 2017.
• Kaiser, Cheryl R., et al. “ The Ironic Consequences of Obama's Election: Decreased Support for Social Justice .”  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , Academic Press, 1 Feb. 2009.
• Lavelle, Marianne. “ 2016: Obama's Climate Legacy Marked by Triumphs and Lost Opportunities .”  Inside Climate News , 26 Dec. 2016.
• "Michelle Obama." First Ladies, Robin Wright Narrator, Season 1, Episode 1, CNN, 4 October 2020.
• Montgomery, Alicia. “ President Obama Defends His Record On Race .”  NPR , NPR, 1 July 2016.
• Obama, Barack. A Promised Land . Penguin Books Ltd, 2020.
• Obama, Barack. "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance." Canongate, 2016.
• Obama, Michelle. "Becoming." Crown Publishing Group, 2018.
• “ Remarks by the President on Climate Change .” National Archives and Records Administration.
• Remnick, David. "The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama." Vintage Books, 2011.
• Samuel, Terence. “ The Racist Backlash Obama Has Faced during His Presidency .”  The Washington Post , 22 April 2016.
• Taylor, Jessica. “ WATCH: Obama Says Trump Exploiting Anger, Fear Among Blue-Collar Men .”  NPR , NPR, 21 Dec. 2015.
• Valentino, Nicholas A., and Ted Brader. “ Sword's Other Edge: Perceptions of Discrimination and Racial Policy Opinion after Obama .”  OUP Academic , Oxford University Press, 4 May 2011.

“ Voting America .”  Presidential Elections 1972 - 2008 , dsl.richmond.edu.

“ Osama Bin Laden Dead .”  National Archives and Records Administration.

Glass, Andrew. “ Obama Handily Wins a Second Term: Nov. 6, 2012 .”  POLITICO , 6 Nov. 2015.

“Remarks by the President on the Supreme Court Decision on Marriage Equality.”  National Archives and Records Administration , 26 June 2015.

Greenberg, Mark and Tait, David M.  Obama: the Historic Presidency of Barack Obama - 2,920 Days . Sterling Publishing Co., 2019

Kamarck, Elaine. “ The Fragile Legacy of Barack Obama .”  Brookings , Brookings, 6 Apr. 2018.

Staff, TIME. “ President Barack Obamas Legacy: 10 Historians Weigh In .”  Time , Time, 20 Jan. 201.

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U.S. Presidents

Barack obama.

44th president of the United States

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii , where he was raised by his mother and her parents. He was the first president born there and the first to be born after the country had 50 states. 

Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, California , before transferring to New York ’s Columbia University. He took a break from school to volunteer in Chicago, Illinois, before earning a law degree from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts . After winning election to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, Obama won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2004 and then the presidency in 2008.

MAKING HISTORY

A Democrat, Obama became the first African American to run for president on a major political party’s ticket. He then went on to become the first African American to be elected president of the United States. (His white mother was from Kansas ; his black father from Kenya , a country in Africa.) He took office during the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression during the 1930s, when one-fourth of all workers were unemployed and people traveled the country looking for food and work. Many called the new crisis the Great Recession.

With help from the Democrat-controlled Congress, Obama worked to improve the economy and ultimately added jobs for 75 straight months, the longest streak in American history. But some parts of the country still struggled with poverty, and the number of people who didn’t make enough money to live comfortably reached an all-time high in 2010. Anger spread when people felt left behind. The Democrats soon lost control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and Obama struggled to pass legislation.

PRIORITIZING HEALTH CARE

Obama’s biggest goal as president was to help all citizens afford health care. At the time, almost 50 million Americans didn’t have health insurance, which meant that some families didn’t have the money to go to the doctor. Obama wanted to change that.

Obama called his health care plan the Affordable Care Act (ACA); it later became nicknamed Obamacare. Although Republicans opposed the plan, saying it was too expensive for the government to fund, it was signed into law in 2010. But within seven minutes of the act’s passage, 13 states sued the federal government for forcing individuals to buy insurance. (Under the   ACA, most people were required to have health insurance or they’d have to pay a penalty.) The states claimed the new act was unconstitutional, meaning Obama couldn’t make the states put it into action.

The ACA took effect in 2014 after the Supreme Court had eventually declared it constitutional. The act guaranteed access to health care options for all Americans who didn’t get it through their jobs. But Republicans, who wanted less government involvement in people’s lives, still didn’t agree with the act. And some people who had the insurance said it was just as expensive, or more expensive, than their previous plans which were no longer available to them. The Affordable Care Act remains controversial today, with many people fighting against it.

FIGHTING TERRORISM

Although the economy continued to improve in the United States, Obama faced challenges in other countries. The United States was fighting two wars in the Middle Eastern countries of Afghanistan and Iraq . President George W. Bush had sent troops to Afghanistan after the terror attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. , on September 11, 2001. Bush hoped to capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, including al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Bush also sent troops to Iraq in 2003, after rumors that the country was hiding dangerous weapons that the president wanted to find and destroy.

Bush's decision to attack these countries was met with general support at first, but by the time Obama became president, public opinion had changed. Some 7,000 American soldiers had died at this point, with an additional 50,000 more wounded. Many Americans wanted these wars to be over. Obama’s administration experienced a victory on May 1, 2011, when a group of Navy SEALs (a special military group) acted on Obama’s command to strike at a house where bin Laden was hiding. His death during the raid was a blow to al Qaeda and gave some U.S. citizens hope that progress was being made in the fight against terrorism.

By the end of 2011, Obama had withdrawn all combat troops from Iraq. But U.S. troops were still fighting in Afghanistan by the end of his two terms, something many people disagreed with. The rise of another terrorist group in the region, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), continued the war against terrorism throughout Obama’s presidency.

OPENING DOORS

Despite wars overseas, Obama reached out to other nations in hopes of maintaining peace. In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower cut ties with the island nation of Cuba because of its support for the communist Soviet Union (now Russia ). Obama tried to ease those tensions by re-opening an embassy there in 2015. He also went to Hiroshima, Japan , where the United States dropped a nuclear bomb in 1945 during World War II. He was the first sitting president to visit the city since that event. For his peace efforts, in 2009 he became the fourth president to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

SUPREME COURT SHAKE-UP

During the first two years of Obama’s presidency, he appointed two new justices to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States. Obama replaced the retiring male justices with women: Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the first person of Latino heritage on the high court. For the first time, the court had three female justices. Obama’s new additions to the Court were part of several historic decisions, including its marriage equality ruling on June 26, 2015. The decision legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

The death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, Obama’s final year of office, gave him another opportunity to add a new justice. But his Republican opponents worried that he would appoint someone who would change how the court made decisions. They declined to consider Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, saying that it was an election year. (No Supreme Court nominee had been denied a hearing during an election year before this.) The seat remained empty through the end of Obama’s presidency, the longest in Supreme Court history. The remaining eight justices continued to work, but important matters were left unresolved when they deadlocked with 4–4 votes.

LASTING LEGACY

Obama left office after two terms in January 2017 with a 60 percent approval rating, higher than most presidents at the end of their presidency. He remained in Washington, D.C., where he and his wife, Michelle, started the Obama Foundation to provide mentoring and education to kids, and to award scholarships to college students.

Obama made history by being the first African American to win the presidency. As a recent president, however, his legacy is still being determined. What future presidents do with Obama's policies and how involved Obama gets in world politics will help shape how his presidency is perceived in the future.

• Obama was sworn into office with the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used 148 years earlier. No other president had used it since Lincoln.

• Obama doesn’t like ice cream. He blames it on a job he had at an ice-cream shop as a teenager.

• A comic book collector, Obama's favorite comic character is Spider-Man.

From the Nat Geo Kids books  Our Country's Presidents  by Ann Bausum and  Weird But True Know-It-All: U.S. Presidents by Brianna Dumont, revised for digital by Avery Hurt

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Barack Obama

The 44th President of the United States

The biography for President Obama and past presidents is courtesy of the White House Historical Association.

Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States. His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, he became the first African American to hold the office. The framers of the Constitution always hoped that our leadership would not be limited to Americans of wealth or family connections. Subject to the prejudices of their time—many of them owned slaves—most would not have foreseen an African American president. Obama’s father, Barack Sr., a Kenyan economist, met his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, when both were students in Hawaii, where Barack was born on August 4, 1961. They later divorced, and Barack’s mother married a man from Indonesia, where he spent his early childhood. Before fifth grade, he returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents and attend Punahou School on scholarship.

In his memoir Dreams from My Father (1995), Obama describes the complexities of discovering his identity in adolescence. After two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles, he transferred to Columbia University, where he studied political science and international relations. Following graduation in 1983, Obama worked in New York City, then became a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, coordinating with churches to improve housing conditions and set up job-training programs in a community hit hard by steel mill closures. In 1988, he went to Harvard Law School, where he attracted national attention as the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review . Returning to Chicago, he joined a small law firm specializing in civil rights.

In 1992, Obama married Michelle Robinson, a lawyer who had also excelled at Harvard Law. Their daughters, Malia and Sasha, were born in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, and then to the U.S. Senate in 2004. At the Democratic National Convention that summer, he delivered a much acclaimed keynote address. Some pundits instantly pronounced him a future president, but most did not expect it to happen for some time. Nevertheless, in 2008 he was elected over Arizona Senator John McCain by 365 to 173 electoral votes.

As an incoming president, Obama faced many challenges—an economic collapse, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the continuing menace of terrorism. Inaugurated before an estimated crowd of 1.8 million people, Obama proposed unprecedented federal spending to revive the economy and also hoped to renew America’s stature in the world. During his first term he signed three signature bills: an omnibus bill to stimulate the economy, legislation making health care more accessible and affordable, and legislation reforming the nation’s financial institutions. Obama also pressed for a fair pay act for women, financial reform legislation, and efforts for consumer protection. In 2009, Obama became the fourth president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2012, he was reelected over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by 332 to 206 electoral votes. The Middle East remained a key foreign policy challenge. Obama had overseen the killing of Osama bin Laden, but a new self-proclaimed Islamic State arose during a civil war in Syria and began inciting terrorist attacks. Obama sought to manage a hostile Iran with a treaty that hindered its development of nuclear weapons. The Obama administration also adopted a climate change agreement signed by 195 nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming.

In the last year of his second term, Obama spoke at two events that clearly moved him—the 50th anniversary of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, and the dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “Our union is not yet perfect, but we are getting closer,” he said in Selma. “And that’s why we celebrate,” he told those attending the museum opening in Washington, “mindful that our work is not yet done.”

Learn more about Barack Obama’s spouse, Michelle Obama .

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U.S. Presidents / Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Campaign Speech

Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States—becoming the first African American to serve in that office—on January 20, 2009.

The son of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father, Obama grew up in Hawaii. Leaving the state to attend college, he earned degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Obama worked as a community organizer in Chicago, where he met and married Michelle LaVaughn Robinson in 1992. Their two daughters, Malia Ann and Natasha (Sasha), were born in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Obama was elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996 and served there for eight years. In 2004, he was elected by a record majority to the US Senate from Illinois and, in February 2007, announced his candidacy for president. After winning a closely fought contest against New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, Obama handily defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee for president, in the general election.

Life In Depth Essays

• Life in Brief
• Life Before the Presidency
• Campaigns and Elections
• Domestic Affairs
• Foreign Affairs
• Family Life
• Impact and Legacy

Chicago Style

Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. “Barack Obama.” Accessed April 09, 2024. https://millercenter.org/president/obama.

Professor of Political Science

Michael Nelson

Professor Nelson is the Fulmer Professor of Political Science at Rhodes College, a senior fellow of the Miller Center, and the senior contributing editor and book editor of the Cook Political Report. He is the author of multiple books on American politics and government.

• Resilient America: Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling Dissent, and Dividing Gov…
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• How the South Joined the Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovati…

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Official portrait of President Barack Obama

On January 14, 2009, the Obama Transition team released the first official portrait for President Barack Obama. The photograph was taken by Pete Souza, the newly announced official White House photographer. It was the first time that an official presidential portrait was taken with a digital camera.

Obama campaigning

Senator Barack Obama speaks with the crowd at a campaign stop during the presidential election of 2008. Obama was often on the campaign trial in casual clothes and frequently spoke directly to voters, two things which contributed to his appeal to everyday Americans. 

The Obama family

When President Barack Obama moved into the White House, it became livelier than it had been in decades. With Obama came,  from left , daughter Sasha, wife Michelle, daughter Malia, and mother-in-law Marian Robinson (not pictured).  This official family portrait was taken by Annie Leibovitz.

Marching in Selma, Alabama

On the 50th anniversary of the violent clashes between civil rights activists and police in Selma, President Obama, his family, and civil rights supporters marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. 

Negotiations from the situation room

President Obama and his advisors talk with negotiators in Switzerland from the situation room. 

The Pope's arrival

President Obama and his family greet Pope Francis as he arrives at Joint Base Andrews. 

President Obama greets crowds

President Obama greets enthusiastic crowds after his speech in Nairobi, Kenya.  

President Obama greets staffer's daughter

When President Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes brought his daughter Ella by for a visit, the president got down on her level to meet her. 

Featured Video

Barack Obama and the burden of race

Thomas J. Sugrue, professor of history and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses his book,  Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race , joined by historians Brian Balogh and Claudrena Harold

Featured Publications

Obama's lyrical, unsentimental and compelling memoir. In Horizontal format.

Barack Obama Biography

Barack Obama

After a historic and bruising 22-monthlong campaign, Sen. Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Nov. 4, 2008. He prevailed over Sen. John McCain in what was probably the most pivotal U.S. election since World War II. He took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, and became the first Black U.S. president.

Four years later, on Nov. 6, 2012, Obama was re-elected, narrowly defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney . Obama prevailed in both the electoral college (303 to 206) and the popular vote (50% to 48%), buoyed largely by taking several crucial battle states, including Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Obama's First Term

On his second day in office in January 2009, President Barack Obama signed executive orders to suspend military tribunals of terror suspects, close all secret prisons and detention camps run by the CIA—including the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison—and ban coercive interrogation methods. He, however, did not rule out the use of tribunals, saying he would review the Bush administration's policies on handling detainees. In March 2011, Obama reversed course on two fronts, allowing military tribunals to move forward at Guantanamo, thus admitting that the prison will remain open for the foreseeable future. His decision followed legislation passed in 2010 that prevents prisoners from being transferred from the prison to the U.S. for trial.

Obama's orders also said that the C.I.A. can only use the 19 interrogation methods mentioned in the Army Field Manual. The move ended Bush's policy of allowing the CIA to use methods that were not permitted by the military. "We believe we can abide by a rule that says we don't torture, but we can effectively obtain the intelligence we need," Obama said.

In October 2009, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Obama responded to the honor with surprise and humility, saying that the award was a "call to action" to engage other nations around the world to promote peace. In his acceptance speech in December, Obama acknowledged the apparent irony that he was given a prize for peace while leading a country fighting in two wars, but claimed that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are both necessary and just. He agreed, however, that he had a lot of work ahead of him to improve the lives of Americans and the others around the world.

2008 Campaign Battle

By taking advantage of the Internet and the power of text messaging on mobile phones, Obama ran an innovative campaign that appealed to young voters. Shunning public financing for his election, Obama raised an unprecedented amount of money, much of it from small donors. Prior to the financial crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dominated the campaign. Obama presented himself as the candidate for change and stressed that a McCain presidency would mirror the policies of the Bush administration.

As a political newcomer, Obama faced an uphill battle in convincing voters that he would be ready to lead the nation. Indeed, throughout the long and often bitter campaign for the Democratic nomination, he and Sen. Hillary Clinton ran neck-and-neck in the primaries and caucuses. Obama and Clinton competed fiercely for the support of working-class voters, and each candidate tried to paint the other as elitist. Obama met sharp criticism for his association with his former pastor, the combative and controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama denounced Wright after several of his divisive sermons popped up in the media. Wright's charged statements prompted Obama to address the race issue, and he earned wide praise for his speech on race relations, "A More Perfect Union."

Running as the candidate of change, Obama made hope the center of his campaign. His platform focused on advocating for working families and poor communities, education, caring for the environment, and ethics reform.

Formative Years

Obama was born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and American mother. His father was raised in a small village in Kenya where he herded goats until he earned a scholarship to study in America. After his parents divorced, Obama's Harvard-educated father then returned to Kenya, where he worked in the economics ministry. Obama was raised by his mother in both Hawaii and Jakarta, Indonesia. He later moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he earned his undergraduate degree.

Obama moved to Chicago after college and worked extensively in the inner city to improve living conditions and reduce the unemployment rate in high-crime neighborhoods. He then attended Harvard Law School, graduated magna cum laude, and served as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. After receiving his degree from Harvard Law School, he returned to Chicago and practiced as a civil rights lawyer.

Personal Life

Obama is married to Michelle Obama , a Chicago native who also graduated from Harvard Law School. Barack and Michelle met in Chicago, where they both worked for the law firm Sidley and Austin. Michelle worked in corporate law for three years before pursuing a career in public service. She has worked for the city of Chicago, and she co-founded Public Allies, which helps young adults acquire skills to work in the public sector. In 2005 she was appointed vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Barack and Michelle have two daughters, Malia Ann and Sasha.

Political Career

His advocacy work on the local level in Chicago led to a run for the Illinois State Senate. Obama served for four years as a state senator and used his position to create programs such as the state Earned Income Tax Credit that provided more than $100 million in tax cuts to families over three years. He also generated an expansion in early childhood education and worked to pass legislation that requires all interrogations and confessions in capital cases to be videotaped.

Obama's eloquent keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention earned him wide praise him and cemented his reputation as one of the party's freshest and most inspirational new faces. In 2004, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, winning with 70% of the vote against the conservative Black Republican, Alan Keyes. Obama became the only African-American serving in the U.S. Senate (and the fifth in U.S. history). Obama's idealism, commitment to civil rights, and telegenic good looks generated enormous media attention for his Senate campaign. He worked with Republicans on issues such as weapons control and ethics reform, yet voted with other Democrats against President Bush's surge of 20,000 troops to Iraq and in favor of a resolution that required combat troops to be fully withdrawn by March 2008.

He served on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; the Foreign Relations Committee; the Veteran's Affairs Committee; and the Environment and Public Works Committee.

2008 Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech

Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination before some 83,000 people at Invesco Field rather than the convention hall in Denver. His acceptance coincided with the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington, during which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his pivotal "I Have a Dream" speech. In his speech, Obama attacked John McCain on several fronts, including national security and his support for many of the policies of the Bush administration, and outlined his plans for the economy, the environment, and health care. Calling McCain out of touch with the economic woes of working-class America, Obama said, "It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it."

Obama's Presidency

Obama took office in the midst of a severe recession. His first major piece of legislative was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a $787 billion spending bill, or "stimulus package," designed to create jobs and reignite the economy. Soon to follow were executive orders that reversed Bush's policies on stem cell research and interrogation techniques for enemy detainees.

In 2009, Obama pushed Congress to pass legislation on health care reform in the United States. Health care reform was a chief legislative goal and a major campaign promise. On March 21, 2010, after months of debate, the House passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the Senate voted in favor of the legislation in December 2009). Obama signed the bill into law two days later. In June 2012, the Supreme Court upheld most of President Barack Obama's healthcare law, including the individual mandate, which requires that most Americans buy health insurance or pay a fee. The individual mandate was the centerpiece of the law. The court ruled, 5-4, that the individual mandate is constitutional under Congress's taxing authority. The Court also upheld the expansion of Medicaid, the government's health insurance program for low-income Americans, but limited the provision, saying states will not necessarily lose their funding if they choose not to expand the program. It was one of the most anticipated rulings in recent history and a major victory for Obama in an election year.

In the November 2010 midterm election, Democrats lost 63 seats, therefore, losing control of the House of Representatives. In a speech about the election outcome, Obama called the loss "humbling" and a "shellacking" and blamed it on the slow economic recovery. The following summer, Congress became gridlocked in a battle over whether to raise the debt ceiling, bringing the government to the brink of default. Because of the gridlock, Standard & Poor's downgraded the nation's credit rating for the first time in history. By the fall of 2012, there were signs that the recovery from the 2008 recession had stalled with job growth continuing to come up short, the unemployment rate hovering at 8%, and the stock market experiencing ups and downs.

On social issues, Obama won praise from the gay community and its supporters. In December 2010, he signed the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell military policy, and in May 2012 he came out in support of gay marriage.

Bin Laden Killed

Perhaps the biggest triumph of Obama's presidency came on May 2, 2011, when Navy SEALS and and CIA operatives shot and killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The operation was a risky one for Obama; despite months of intelligence work leading up to the raid, there was no guarantee bin Laden would be in the compound. The risk paid off when the world's most wanted terrorist was finally killed nearly 10 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

A month after bin Laden was killed, Obama announced that the U.S. had largely achieved its goals in Afghanistan and that time had come to start withdrawing troops and begin "to focus on nation-building here at home." He said about 10,000 of the 30,000 troops deployed in 2009 as part of the surge would leave the country. In February 2012, the Obama administration announced that the military would end its combat role in Afghanistan by the middle of 2013 and shift toward an "advise and assist" capacity.

On December 15, 2011, Obama declared that the U.S.-led war in Iraq had officially ended. The war, launched in March 2003, lasted nearly nine years, killed more than 4,440 U.S. troops, and cost about $1 trillion.

Re-election Campaign

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney secured the Republican presidential nomination and has based his campaign on the economy, saying that Obama had failed to lift the economy out of turmoil and that the American people are no better off than they were four years ago. Obama is running on his accomplishments and is warning voters that Romney is weak on foreign policy and that a Romney administration would protect the rich at the expense of the middle and working classes. Social issues have also figured prominently in the campaign. In choosing Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, Romney has veered right on abortion, same-sex marriage, and immigration, hoping to win the support of the party's conservative base.

The race has shaped up to be one of the closest in recent history, with the election being decided in just a few dozen districts.

• Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.

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Barack Obama

When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, he became the first African American to hold the office. Obama faced major challenges during his two-term tenure in office. His primary policy achievements included health care reform, economic stimulus, banking reform and consumer protections, and a repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy preventing lesbian and gay Americans from serving openly in the military.

Obama’s father, Barack Sr., a Kenyan economist, met his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, when both were students in Hawaii, where Barack was born on August 4, 1961. They later divorced, and Barack’s mother married a man from Indonesia, where he spent his early childhood. Before fifth grade, he returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents and attend a private prep school on scholarship. In his memoir Dreams from My Father (1995), Obama describes the complexities of discovering his identity in adolescence.

After two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles, he transferred to Columbia University, where he studied political science and international relations. Following graduation in 1983, Obama worked in New York City, then became a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, coordinating with churches to improve housing conditions and create job-training programs in a community hit hard by steel mill closures. In 1988, he went to Harvard Law School, where he attracted national attention as the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review . Returning to Chicago, he joined a small law firm specializing in civil rights.

In 1992, Obama married Michelle Robinson, a lawyer who had also excelled at Harvard Law. Their daughters, Malia and Sasha, were born in 1998 and 2001. Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, and then to the U.S. Senate in 2004. At the Democratic National Convention that summer, he delivered an acclaimed keynote address. In 2008, after winning the Democratic nomination after a hard-fought primary race with Hillary Clinton, he defeated Arizona Senator John McCain by 365 to 173 electoral votes in the general election.

As an incoming president, Obama faced many challenges including the 2008 financial crisis, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the continuing global war on terrorism. Inaugurated before an estimated crowd of 1.8 million people, Obama proposed unprecedented federal spending to revive the economy and a renewal of America’s stature in the world.

During his first term he signed three signature bills: economic stimulus, health care reform, and legislation reforming the nation’s financial institutions. Obama also pressed for a fair pay act for women and new safeguards for consumer protection. In 2009, Obama became the fourth president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. However, in the 2010 mid-term elections, the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives, thus affecting Obama’s future domestic policy agenda.

In 2012, he was reelected over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by 332 to 206 electoral votes. The Middle East remained a key foreign policy challenge. Obama directed the military and intelligence operation that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, the head of Al-Qaeda and the terrorist responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. However, a new self-proclaimed Islamic State arose during a civil war in Syria and began inciting terrorist attacks. Obama sought to manage a hostile Iran with a treaty that hindered its development of nuclear weapons. The Obama administration also adopted the Paris Climate Agreement signed by 174 states and the European Union in 2015 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming.

In the last year of his second term, Obama spoke at two events that clearly moved him—the 50th anniversary of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery and the dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “Our union is not yet perfect, but we are getting closer,” he said in Selma. “And that’s why we celebrate,” he told those attending the museum opening in Washington, “mindful that our work is not yet done.”

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Bell Ringer: President Barack Obama - Biography

Description.

A brief life portrait of Barack Obama. 

Bell Ringer Assignment

• Where was Barack Obama born and raised?
• Describe his childhood experiences.
• Explain his educational background.
• What did Barack Obama personally struggle with throughout his youth?
• Where did he attend college?
• Describe his work experiences in Chicago.
• Who did he marry?
• What public offices did he hold?
• When was he elected President of the U.S.?
• Explain some key events that have occurred during his administration.

Participants

• Affordable Care Act
• Democratic National Convention
• Harvard Law Review
• Nobel Peace Prize

On This Page

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President Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II was born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to parents Barack H. Obama, Sr., and Stanley Ann Dunham. His parents divorced when he was 2 years old and he was raised by his mother, Ann, and maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. His mother later married Lolo Soetoro, and his sister Maya was born in 1970. (He also has several siblings on his father’s side.)

Obama moved with his family to Indonesia in 1967, where he attended local Indonesian schools and received additional lessons via U.S. correspondence courses under his mother’s direction.

He returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents in 1971 and attended Punahou School, from which he graduated in 1979. Obama first attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, before transferring to Columbia University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1983.

After graduation, Obama briefly worked as an analyst at Business International Corporation in New York City, before changing his career direction toward community service organizing. He relocated to Chicago, Illinois, in 1985 when he accepted a job with the Developing Communities Project. Eventually rising to the role of Director, Obama worked with low-income communities on Chicago’s South Side, often collaborating with local religious organizations and civic groups.

After three years of community organizing, Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School. After completing his first year, he worked as a summer associate at Chicago corporate law firm of Sidley & Austin, where his mentor was Michelle Robinson, his future wife.

Obama was elected the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, prior to graduating magna cum laude in 1991. He returned to Chicago in 1992 and served as the Illinois Executive Director of PROJECT VOTE!. In 1993, he was hired as an associate at the firm of Davis Miner Barnhill & Gallard, where he largely worked on voting rights cases.

Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson were married in 1992 at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. They have two daughters, Malia and Natasha “Sasha.” In the summer of 1995, Obama’s first book was published. Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance detailed his personal history and search for identity.

Political Career

In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate from the thirteenth district. As a State Senator, he served as Democratic Spokesperson for Public Health and Welfare Committee and Co-Chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, in addition to being a member of the Judiciary and Revenue Committees. He also worked as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago from 1996 until 2004, teaching three courses per year.

Obama was elected to a second term in the Illinois State Senate in November 1998. In 2000, Obama made his first run for the U.S. Congress when he sought the Democratic U.S. House seat in Illinois First District. He lost to incumbent Representative Bobby Rush by a margin of more than 2-to-1.

In July 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, held in Boston, Massachusetts. He was elected as the junior Senator from Illinois in November 2004. While serving as U.S. Senator from Illinois, Obama completed his second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream , published in October 2006.

On February 10, 2007, Obama formally announced his candidacy for President of the United States. He accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination at Invesco Stadium in Denver, Colorado on August 28, 2008. On November 4, 2008, Obama became the first African-American to be elected President. He resigned his seat in the U.S. Senate on November 16, 2008.

Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009.

Presidential Administration

Domestic policy decisions dominated the first 100 Days of the Obama administration. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which encourages fair pay for all workers and established new methods of protesting unfair paychecks, was the first signed legislation of the administration. To combat the effects of the Great Recession, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (known as the Recovery Act) in February 2009, which outlined a policy to create additional jobs, extend unemployment benefits, and established the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

In March 2010, after announcing his intent for healthcare reform in a 2009 address to Congress, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (also known as “Obamacare”), establishing the most sweeping reforms of the American healthcare system in recent history. To improve access to healthcare coverage, the Act included a Patient’s Bill of Rights to end discrimination by insurance companies based on pre-existing conditions. Among its other reforms, the Act strengthened Medicare and required the insurer to cover preventative screenings for cancer, diabetes, and blood pressure disorders.

The Obama administration centered its foreign policy on drawing down the number of American forces stationed overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Obama also committed to destroying the ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) terrorist organization through the administration’s comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy, including systematic airstrikes against ISIL, providing additional support to forces fighting ISIL on the ground, increased cooperation with counter-terrorism partners, and humanitarian assistance to civilians.

On May 2, 2011, President Obama announced to the nation that the United States had conducted an operation that resulted in the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Following leads from the intelligence community, the raid on bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound was conducted with no American casualties.

President Obama also obtained congressional approval for military action against Syria following the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons on civilians. Negotiations with Russia led to the signing of a New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) Treaty, which limited the two countries to fewer strategic arms over the course of seven years through inspections and verification. In 2015, the U.S. and other partners reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, which aimed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and committed Iran to further monitoring of all Iranian nuclear activities.

President Obama announced plans to normalize foreign relations with Cuba in conjunction with President Castro, including reopening the U.S. Embassy in Havana in July 2015. The First Family visited Cuba in March 2016, making President Obama the first sitting President to visit the nation in 90 years.

Post-Presidency

President and Mrs. Obama returned to their lives as private citizens on January 20, 2017.

Works Published by Barack Obama

• Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance , 1995
• The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream , 2006
• Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters , 2010
• A Promised Land, 2020

Media Galleries

Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States. His story is the American story -- values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

Barack H. Obama is the 44th President of the United States.

His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton's army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank.

After working his way through college with the help of scholarships and student loans, President Obama moved to Chicago, where he worked with a group of churches to help rebuild communities devastated by the closure of local steel plants.

He went on to attend law school, where he became the first African—American president of the  Harvard Law Review . Upon graduation, he returned to Chicago to help lead a voter registration drive, teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and remain active in his community.

President Obama's years of public service are based around his unwavering belief in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose. In the Illinois State Senate, he passed the first major ethics reform in 25 years, cut taxes for working families, and expanded health care for children and their parents. As a United States Senator, he reached across the aisle to pass groundbreaking lobbying reform, lock up the world's most dangerous weapons, and bring transparency to government by putting federal spending online.

He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and sworn in on January 20, 2009. He and his wife, Michelle, are the proud parents of two daughters, Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11.

Learn more about Barack Obama's spouse, Michelle Obama .

Previous President

President Barack Obama

• Health Care Reform - One of Barack Obama's most significant accomplishments as president was health care reform. In 2010, he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. This law became so associated with Barack Obama that it is sometimes referred to as "Obamacare." This law is intended to help poor people to be able to afford health insurance and to provide quality health care for all Americans.
• Iraq and Afghanistan Wars - These wars were currently ongoing when Obama became president. President Obama successfully ended the Iraq War with most U.S. Troops returning home in 2011. The Afghanistan War did not fare as well and continued throughout Obama's eight years as president. U.S casualties grew with 2010 becoming the worst year of the war. However, Osama bin Laden (the leader of the 9/11 attacks ) was finally captured and killed on May 11, 2011.
• U.S. Economy - There are various arguments on how the U.S. economy fared under Obama's leadership. While unemployment peaked at 10% in 2009, it is estimated that over 11 million jobs were created during his two terms. At the start of his presidency, Obama pushed for higher taxes, a larger federal government, and stimulus plans to get the economy moving. While some areas of the economy showed signs of improvement, the growth of the overall economy (GDP) remained sluggish throughout his presidency.
• Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill - On April 20, 2010 an accident on an oil rig caused a giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Tons of oil was released into the ocean for days on end. This oil contaminated much of the gulf and is considered to be one of the worst environmental disasters in world history.

• He likes to play basketball and is an avid sports fan. His favorite teams are the Chicago Bears for football and the Chicago White Sox for baseball.
• He has several half-siblings including a younger half-sister named Maya Soetoro-Ng.
• He has made good money from writing books. In 2009 he made $5.5 million.
• Barack can speak Indonesian and some Spanish.
• He won a Grammy Award in 2006 for his voice on the audio book Dreams From My Father .
• After working at a Baskin-Robbins as a teen, Barack no longer likes ice cream. Bummer!
• He has read all the Harry Potter books.
• While living in Indonesia he got to eat some interesting items including grasshoppers and snake meat. Yum!
• Take a ten question quiz about this page.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

The Great Democratic Success Story That Wasn’t

America can’t deliver Myanmar from its dictatorship, but it can do more than shift the burden and look away.

The Obama administration seemed to take special pride in its policy toward Myanmar. American statecraft had coaxed the country’s reclusive military dictatorship onto a path of democratic transformation, Kurt Campbell, who served as an assistant secretary of state at the time, wrote in his 2016 book, Pivot : “One of the world’s most isolated, tragic, and magical lands had finally opened to the world because of intrepid American diplomacy, perhaps fundamentally changing the trajectory of Asia.”

Then, in February 2021, Myanmar’s government fell to a military coup. The country had known little peace for decades, but now it was spiraling into untold violence: Protesters poured into the streets, the junta cracked down, and new armed groups joined those that had already been fighting the military. Campbell, serving in the White House under President Joe Biden as Asia czar, had precious little to say about Myanmar then, nor did lawmakers ask him about Myanmar during his recent confirmation as deputy secretary of state.

Myanmar was once the buzziest of foreign-policy causes. It commanded immense bipartisan support; lawmakers and officials clamored to take credit for its success. Then, in its hour of difficulty, it all but vanished from view in Washington. The limited U.S. response to the country’s travails has “been sort of in the right direction, but lacking energy and commitment,” Scot Marciel, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Myanmar, told me.

Read: No one is saving Myanmar

Myanmar’s crisis is growing and threatens to destabilize the region. The country’s armed opposition has gathered strength in recent months. The military, facing its most serious battlefield test, has resorted to ever more brutal tactics. Waves of refugees are overflowing the country’s borders. Myanmar’s junta has reluctantly turned to China for support, and Beijing, initially displeased with the coup, has begun inserting itself into the conflict and country more forcefully than in the past.

Myanmar’s trajectory was never as simple as Washington wanted to believe. But that doesn’t mean that its long-term prospects for democracy are hopeless, or that the United States should leave the country to the tender mercies of warring factions and Chinese intervention. Myanmar is a good example of a country where the longevity of U.S. commitment matters, and where the most constructive measures call for patience and pragmatism, not declaring a victory for democracy and walking away.

In 2012, Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Myanmar, as the country’s repressive military dictatorship cautiously, haltingly opened to the world. In 2015, during that brief flowering of diplomatic relations, Myanmar held its first freely contested election in a quarter century. The military-drafted constitution prevented Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s Nobel Prize–winning opposition leader, from serving as president, but her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won the vote handily and came to power. Suu Kyi created the role of state counselor to work around the military’s obstruction and became the de facto head of state.

This seemingly golden moment lasted only a short time before the military cracked down on the ethnic Rohingya in Rakhine State, in the country’s northwest, in a campaign that has been widely condemned as genocide. The civilian government sided with the military: At The Hague in 2019, Suu Kyi argued that Myanmar’s armed forces had their own justice system that was capable of punishing those who may have committed crimes. The position perplexed her foreign admirers, given the military’s history of impunity—and that it had specifically punished Suu Kyi in the past by locking her in her lakeside villa for 15 years. But Suu Kyi’s defense of the campaign against the Rohingya didn’t seem to taint her in the eyes of her most ardent Beltway supporters. Nor did it faze voters in Myanmar, where many endowed her with a saintlike stature. In the 2020 election, the NLD carried off an even more resounding victory than before.

But Suu Kyi’s second electoral victory was apparently one too many for Min Aung Hlaing, the country’s politically ambitious commander in chief. On the morning of February 1, 2021, military vehicles sped into the country’s capital, and Min Aung Hlaing and his cadres supplanted the elected government. The coup “was, at its core, an immense act of political revenge,” a former high-ranking government official, who asked not to be named out of fear of reprisal, told me. Suu Kyi was jailed in a hastily constructed prison designed for one, protests mushroomed across the country, and the country’s armed forces responded with unrestrained violence.

Read: Joe Biden’s challenge was Barack Obama’s victory

Over the next two years, the junta and its proxies battled a sprawling patchwork of resistance forces, including some preexisting armed groups representing ethnic minorities. International bodies issued toothless statements of concern as Myanmar’s military reportedly burned entire villages, dropped bombs indiscriminately, and raped civilians. The junta leaned into its relationships with old allies, most notably Russia, as it attempted to carry on the functions of the state.

Late last October, the conflict reached a head. A group called the Three Brotherhood Alliance, consisting of three armed ethnic groups, carried out coordinated attacks, including many along Myanmar’s border with China, where Burmese organized-crime syndicates had set up compounds housing sophisticated cyberscam operations. Beijing tacitly approved the attacks because the scams were a nuisance to China.

The Three Brotherhood Alliance captured dozens of high-ranking officials and killed hundreds of soldiers. A few months later, in February, the junta announced a conscription drive to replenish its depleted ranks, setting off a rush for visas and the exits.

Myanmar has long been a problematic neighbor—now it’s an outright disaster for the region. The country has largely lost control of its borders. Rake-thin, exhausted soldiers were filmed earlier this year fleeing Myanmar into Bangladesh. India has said it will begin constructing a border fence. Officials in Thailand have warned of a possible influx of 4 million undocumented migrants from Myanmar this year, with potentially “catastrophic effects” on Thailand’s “economy, society, and security.” And at least twice since the coup, errant bombs have landed inside China, which has become ever more frustrated with the instability and disruption in Myanmar.

Read: China is the Myanmar coup’s ‘biggest loser’

The effects of Myanmar’s troubles extend even beyond the country’s immediate neighbors. “Production of illicit drugs, not only opium but also methamphetamines, including ice, is soaring and reaching markets as far afield as Australia and Japan. Rohingya from both Bangladesh and Rakhine State are fleeing to third countries, particularly Malaysia and Indonesia,” Thomas Kean, a Myanmar analyst for the International Crisis Group, told me. “The list goes on and on.”

Which is to say that even if Myanmar isn’t likely to be the next great democratization success story, its future matters. And if the United States can’t bring itself to care about it, China will be the main power determining its course.

The American response to the coup in Myanmar and the turmoil that followed has been anemic, especially compared with its once full-throated championing of the short-lived civilian government.

Following the coup, Washington downgraded diplomatic relations with Myanmar and imposed sanctions meant to punish the junta’s leaders and cut off its flow of funds and weapons. In 2022, the Biden administration declared the campaign against the Rohingya a genocide, a decision that the previous administration had pushed off for reasons of its own. And the Burma Act, a long-delayed piece of legislation promising aid to the country’s people and stepping up pressure on the junta, was signed into law in 2023 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

But sanctions are not a substitute for a policy. They are merely a tool, and they come with limitations, particularly as Myanmar’s economy has become more international, and its web of military bagmen adept at evading sanctions has grown. As for the Burma Act, it was originally devised in 2019 and passed only after being watered down significantly. Its measures, now, are little and late.

In fact, the Biden administration has outsourced much of the responsibility for Myanmar to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-country regional bloc of which Myanmar is a member. That group has achieved next to nothing and clings rather humiliatingly to a five-point plan that the junta has blatantly disregarded for the past three years. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan continues to reiterate America’s support for the all-but-dead five-point plan. Backing ASEAN’s feckless approach is not just ineffectual; it further diminishes American credibility by tethering Washington to a bloc that much of Myanmar has come to loathe.

Many in Washington never quite got over Suu Kyi, whom they saw as Myanmar’s sole avatar of democracy. With her gone and no replacement, the country lacks a visible champion. But it is transforming. The military’s savagery, long known to ethnic minorities, is now broadcast daily to the wider public on social media, leading many Burmese to reevaluate the armed forces’ role in society. The country’s prodemocracy forces have formed a parallel civilian government in exile that has promised a more inclusive and equitable model of governance than Suu Kyi’s party ever offered. Some members have even shown a bit of concern for the plight of the Rohingya.

The U.S. can’t deliver Myanmar from its dictatorship. But it can do more than abdicate responsibility and shift the burden to unhelpful neighbors. Washington could, for example, provide technical assistance to local governments in areas controlled by resistance groups, and direct U.S. humanitarian aid to stranded communities through avenues not controlled by the junta.

Myanmar’s new reality is complex and fractured, and engaging with it means engaging with democratic forces that fall outside official channels. Even a fraction of the high-level attention that Myanmar got during the Obama years would demonstrate to the country’s rightly frustrated people that American interest is genuine, long-term, and not just a fleeting diplomatic vanity project.

The United States likes to reiterate its commitment to helping “restore Burma’s path to democracy.” That path is not visible at the moment. The military has proved itself as durable as it is brutal. But there could one day be another opening, and if the United States hopes to support the democratic development of Myanmar, it should not stand back and wait for that day but begin now to rebuild trust.

In his book, Campbell acknowledges that progress in Myanmar is very often paired with “heartbreaking setbacks.” But, he writes, “the question for the country is not whether it will return to the past but how it will move into the future—and whether the United States will assist it as it does.”

Michelle and Barack Obama's daughter Malia changes her name as she steps out of her parents' shadow

The former white house occupants share two daughters.

Michelle  and Barack Obama have one of the most famous surnames in the world – but their daughter, Malia , appears to want to distance herself from it as she forges her career. 

The 25-year-old is a budding filmmaker and showcased her short film, The Heart  – about the relationship between a mother and her son – at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah on January 18. Watch it below.

In what appears to be an attempt to distance herself from the nepo-baby stigma – her parents launched a production company, Higher Ground, in 2018 – the Harvard graduate has dropped 'Obama' from her last name in favor of a different stage moniker. 

During the Sundance Institute's Meet the Artist spotlight video, it was revealed that Malia is using her middle name as she was referred to as Malia Ann. 

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Malia is proving herself in the entertainment industry after interning on HBO's Girls  and at Harvey Weinstein's production company. 

She also worked as a staff writer on Donald Glover's Amazon Prime series Swarm , and he had nothing but good things to say about her work ethic. 

"Her writing style is great," he told Vanity Fair in 2022: "She's just like, an amazingly talented person. She's really focused, and she's working really hard." 

He added: "I feel like she’s just somebody who's gonna have really good things coming soon." 

Donald wasn't the only one who saw her talent either. His brother,  Steven Glover , who often collaborates with his sibling, had plenty of praise for Malia too. 

"Donald always says perspective is important," he revealed during the same interview. "And people with different perspectives are important for a writer's room. 

"And for sure, she definitely has a unique perspective on everything. So, we wanted to hear her stories and have her work with us. Listening to her stories and having her involved really gave us a lot of good ideas." 

Steven also joked that "we can't be easy on her just because she's the [former] president's daughter." 

Malia and Donald have maintained a close working relationship as The Heart  was one of the first projects produced by his company, Gilga. 

Speaking to GQ  about her film debut, he said: "The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once. You're Obama's daughter. So, if you make a bad film, it will follow you around." 

The Heart  is Malia's first film to appear at Sundance after it was chosen to premiere in the acclaimed festival, which sees over 14,000 filmmakers submit their work but only around 100 are selected. 

Speaking about the project, Malia described it as "an odd little story, somewhat a fable, about a man grieving the death of his mother after she leaves him an unusual request". 

She continued: "The film is about lost objects and lonely people and forgiveness and regret, but I also think it works hard to uncover where tenderness and closeness can exist in those things." 

Malia added: "We hope it makes you feel a bit less lonely or at least reminds you not to forget about the people who are. 

"The folks who came together to make this film have my heart, pun intended!"

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