Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician serving as the 44th President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office, as well as the first president born outside of the continental United States.
His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, born in Wichita, Kansas, was of mostly English ancestry.His father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Kenya. Obama’s parents met in 1960 in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where his father was a foreign student on scholarship.
** FILE ** This 1960’s photo provided by the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., shows Obama with his mother Stanley Ann Dunham. The Kansas-born mother, the Kenyan-born father, Barack Obama Sr., met at the University of Hawaii. They married, and Barack, “blessed” in Arabic, was born on Aug. 4, 1961. (AP Photo/Obama Presidential Campaign) ** FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY, NO SALES **
Michelle Obama – U.S. First Lady, Lawyer – Biography.com
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is an American lawyer and writer. She is married to the 44th and current President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States. Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, and spent the early part of her legal career working at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met her husband. Subsequently, she worked on Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley‘s staff, and for the University of Chicago Medical Center. Married in 1992, the couple have two daughters together.
Throughout 2007 and 2008, Obama campaigned for her husband’s presidential bid, delivering a keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and speaking at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. As First Lady, she has become a fashion icon, a role model for women, and an advocate for poverty awareness, nutrition, physical activity, and healthy eating.
Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at University of Chicago Law School between 1992 and 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
In 2004, Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illinois in the United States Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November. He began his presidential campaign in 2007 and, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008, he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the presidential nomination. He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months after his inauguration, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Malia Obama: US president’s daughter to go to Harvard – BBC News
US President Barack Obama’s elder daughter Malia will attend Harvard University in 2017, after taking a year off following her high school graduation, the White House says.
“Malia will take a gap year before beginning school,” a White House statement said.
The 17-year-old will be following in the footsteps of her parents, both of whom went to Harvard Law School.
Her choice of university has been a subject of much speculation.
Malia is the elder of the Obamas’ two daughters. She and her sister Sasha, 15, attend the Sidwell Friends, a prestigious local private school.
The Obamas have said they will keep living in Washington after the president leaves office in January, so that Sasha can finish her high school studies there.
President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, sit for a family portrait in the Oval Office, Dec. 11, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.Ê
Obama was reelected president in November 2012, defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney, and was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2013. During his second term, Obama has promoted domestic policies related to gun control in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and has called for greater inclusiveness for LGBT Americans, while his administration has filed briefs which urged the Supreme Court to strike down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and state level same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional. In foreign policy, Obama ordered U.S. military intervention in Iraq in response to gains made by theIslamic State after the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, continued the process of ending U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, promoted discussions that led to the 2015 Paris Agreement on global climate change, brokered anuclear deal with Iran, and normalized U.S. relations with Cuba.
Transcript: ‘This is your victory,’ says Obama – CNN.com
Of his early childhood, Obama recalled, “That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind.” He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.