Early life and Education

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a Luo from Kenya, and Ann Dunham, a white American from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student. They separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama's father attended Harward Universtiy for his Doctor’s Degree and returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile¹ accident in 1982.

Young Obama and his family

After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal² grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979. Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for several years and then back to Indonesia to complete fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation³. She died of ovarian cancer in 1995.

Young Obama and his mother

As an adult Obama admitted that during high school he used marijuana, cocaine⁴, and alcohol, which he described at the 2008 Civil Forum⁵ on the Presidency⁶ as his greatest moral failure.

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.

Career

Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, then at the start of the following year worked for a year at the Business International Corporation and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP) and worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. At the end of his first year, he was selected, based on his grades and a writing competition, as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. In February 1990, in his second year, he was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time⁷ volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the Law Review's staff of eighty editors.

After graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.

He served from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation.

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. He resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate.

2008 Election

On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. Throughout the campaign, Obama has emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care. And he promised “change” in the campaign course.

Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black president Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide⁸ that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself. "Change has come," he declared to a huge throng⁹ of cheering supporters.

The Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa and more.

巴拉克•奥巴马出生于夏威夷州檀香山，他的父亲老巴拉克是生于肯尼亚的卢欧族人，母亲安•杜汉姆（Ann Duham）出生于美国堪萨斯州的威奇托。

奥巴马的父母在檀香山玛诺亚的夏威夷大学上学时相识，当时他的父亲以国际学生身份在校求学。奥巴马两岁时，父母分居，之后离婚。此后，他的父亲便前往哈佛大学攻读博士学位，之后返回肯尼亚。1982年，老巴拉克在一场车祸中丧生，此前他与儿子只见过一次面。

离婚后，奥巴马的母亲嫁给了一位印度尼西亚籍的学生Lolo Soetoro。1967年，奥巴马六岁时，与母亲一家迁居到雅加达并在当地的学校上学。四年后，奥巴马回到夏威夷，与外祖父母生活在一起。从五年级起，奥巴马就读于位于檀香山的大型私立学校畔拿荷学校，并于1979年毕业。

1972，奥巴马的母亲回到夏威夷并在这待了几年，之后为了完成她的博士论文，她又返回印度尼西亚进行实地考察和调研。奥巴马的母亲于1995年因卵巢癌去世。

在中学时代，奥巴马吸食过大麻和可卡因，他在“2008年总统公民论坛”上表示，这是他一生中最大的道德失败。

高中毕业后，奥巴马在加州洛杉矶的西方学院（Occidental College）求学两年，随后转至纽约市的哥伦比亚大学，在那里主修政治学及国际关系。

职业生涯

1983年在哥伦比亚大学取得学士学位后，奥巴马在“国际商务集团”和“纽约公共利益研究所”工作了一年。

1985年，他迁往芝加哥，并在之后的三年主持了一个社区发展计划。

奥巴马于1988年底进入哈佛法学院。第一年年末，奥巴马凭借其出色的成绩和在一次论文比赛中脱颖而出，被选为《哈佛法律评论》的编辑。1990年2月，他被选为该学术期刊的主席，任全职主编，手下有八名编辑。

1991年，奥巴马在哈佛大学获得了“极优等”（拉丁文的学位荣誉，magna cum laude）法学士的学位，并回到芝加哥。1994年至2002年，奥巴马分别在芝加哥森林基金会和乔伊斯基金会的董事会任职过一段时间。

1996年，奥巴马进入政坛，当选伊利诺斯州参议员。2003年1月，奥巴马被选为伊利诺斯州卫生公共服务委员会主席。2004年11月，他在国会选举中当选伊利诺斯州联邦参议员。

2008年参加美国大选

2007年2月10日，奥巴马在伊利诺斯州首府春田市的老州政府大厦前正式宣布参加2008年总统大选。伊拉克战争、增大能源自主和全民医疗保险是奥巴马竞选纲领所关注的三大主要问题。此外，“变化”是奥巴马的竞选主题。

Barack Obama, US new president-elect makes appearace in Chicago before delivering his victory speech with his wife, Michelle and two daughters, November 4, 2008

巴拉克•奥巴马在美国当地时间周二的晚间以压倒性优势获胜，成为美国首位黑人总统。这一结果颠覆了美国有史以来存在的种族隔阂现状。他在获胜后对欢庆胜利的众多支持者们喊道：“变革的时代来了。”

这位伊利诺斯州民主党参议员在俄亥俄、佛罗里达、弗吉尼亚、爱荷华等几个角逐激烈的战场州击败共和党参议员约翰•麦凯恩之后，这一历史性胜利的局面便已锁定。