Brief biography of barack obama
Biography of barack obama president: Barack Obama is the first Black president of the United States. Learn facts about him: his age, height, leadership legacy, quotes, family, and more.
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 , 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 , 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.
Returning to Chicago, he joined a small law firm specializing in civil rights. Their daughters, Malia and Sasha, were born in and , respectively. Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in , and then to the U. Senate in 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.
Biography of barack obama early life
By the end of , Obama had also added two new judges to the Supreme Court— Sonia Sotomayor , who was confirmed on August 6, , and Elena Kagan , who was confirmed on August 5, Both are members of the court's liberal wing. This was a major victory for Obama, winning him praise across party lines. Obama launched his campaign for reelection in 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 , Obama defeated Romney with electoral votes and During his second term as president, Obama focused on new challenges facing the country. In , he organized a group to begin negotiations with Iran. An agreement was reached in 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 , 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 , the U. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that marriage equality is protected under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Obama called the ruling a "victory for America. In July , 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 The shift in U. 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:. 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.
In A Promised Land , a page autobiography the first volume in a planned two-volume set published in November 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:. 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.
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.
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 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 and become the frontrunner for the 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.
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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.
Marcia Chatelain, an associate professor at Georgetown University, noted:. 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.
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After three years of community organizing, Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School. Obama was elected the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, prior to graduating magna cum laude in In , Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate from the thirteenth district. He also worked as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago from until , teaching three courses per year.
Obama was elected to a second term in the Illinois State Senate in November In , Obama made his first run for the U. Congress when he sought the Democratic U. House seat in Illinois First District. He lost to incumbent Representative Bobby Rush by a margin of more than 2-to Biden Jr. Biden had been a U. They worked to bring new voters—many of them young or Black, both demographics they believed favored Obama—to become involved in the election.
Deletis vedran biography of barack obama president
With several weeks remaining, most polls showed Obama as the frontrunner. On November 4, lines at polling stations around the nation heralded a historic turnout and resulted in a Democratic victory, with Obama capturing some Republican strongholds Virginia , Indiana and key battleground states Florida , Ohio that had been won by Republicans in recent elections.
We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there. To address the financial crisis he inherited, he passed a stimulus bill, bailed out the struggling auto industry and Wall Street, and gave working families a tax cut.
In the foreign policy arena, Obama opened up talks with Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela and set a withdrawal date for American troops in Iraq.
No Americans were lost in the operation, which gathered evidence about Al-Qaeda. Barack Obama was re-elected for a second term in , beating out Republican Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan. The midterm elections proved challenging, as Republicans gained a majority in both houses of Congress. His second term was marked by several international events.
In , Obama came out strongly against the use of chemical weapons on civilians by Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, avoiding a direct strike on Syria when al-Assad agreed to accept a Russian proposal that it relinquish its chemical weapons.