The Life and Legacy of Barack Obama

President Obama, born Barack Hussein Obama, came into this world on August 4th, 1961, in Honolulu Hawaii. He is multi-racial, but still down to earth. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born in Nayanza Province, Kenya of Luo ethnicity. His caucasuian mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas.

Obama's life wasn't always filled with the glitz and glamour he faces today. When he was a young boy, he helped his father herd goats for the British, whom his father was a domestic servant to. His parents seperated and later divorced when he was only two years old.

His father went to Harvard to pursue a Ph D. then returned to Kenya. Later his mother remarried Lolo Soetoro of Indonesia and in 1967 moved to Jakarta, where classes were taught in Indonesian. In 1971, when Obama was ten he moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. He was taught at Punahou Academy, where he graduated with honors in fifth grade. He was only one of three other African-Americans. At this school is when he first started to experience racism. It was hard for him to grasp his culture and race due to the fact that he only saw his father once after his parents divorced.

After he got his diploma, he atended Occidental College in Las Angeles for two years. He then transfered to Columbia University in New York where he graduated in 1983 with a degree in political science. The time spent between his college graduation and his first Harvard semester did not go to waste. He worked at at "Business International Corporation (a company that provided international business information to corporate clients) and NYPIRG, Obama moved to Chicago in 1985. There, he worked as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago's Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city's South Side."