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.
President Barack Obama tours the Shwedagon Pagoda with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, right, in Yangon, Myanmar, Nov. 19, 2012.
As part of a three-day trip to Asia, Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Myanmar. He met with democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein. (Carolyn Kaster / AP)
President Barack Obama jokingly mimics U.S. Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney's "not impressed" expression while greeting members of the 2012 U.S. Olympic gymnastics teams in the Oval Office, Nov. 15, 2012.
Maroney's expression became an internet sensation when during the ceremony for her 2012 Olympic vault silver medal she was photographed giving a brief look of disappointment with her lips pursed to the side. (Pete Souza / The White House via Getty Images)
Maroney's expression became an internet sensation when during the ceremony for her 2012 Olympic vault silver medal she was photographed giving a brief look of disappointment with her lips pursed to the side. (Pete Souza / The White House via Getty Images)
U.S. President Barack Obama embraces first lady Michelle Obama during his last rally the night before the general election November 5, 2012 in Des Moines, Iowa.
The rally was held just outside Obama's first headquarters from the 2008 campaign, where his first march to the White House started. Obama and his opponent, Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are stumping from one 'swing state' to the next in a last-minute rush to persuade undecided voters.
The rally was held just outside Obama's first headquarters from the 2008 campaign, where his first march to the White House started. Obama and his opponent, Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are stumping from one 'swing state' to the next in a last-minute rush to persuade undecided voters.
Color pencil sketch of Barack and Michelle Obama dancing.
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"For me to be able to say to the Republicans, the election is over; you no longer need to be focused on trying to beat me ... I'm prepared to make a whole range of compromises, some of which I get criticized from the Democratic Party on, in order to make progress. But we're going to need compromise on your side as well. And the days of viewing compromise as a dirty word need to be over because the American people are tired of it." ~Barack Obama --
U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama welcome members of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams to the White House September 14, 2012 in Washington, DC. The U.S. team brought home 104 medals, 46 of them gold medals, from the games in London.
(September 13, 2012 - Source: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America)
(September 13, 2012 - Source: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America)
“We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we’ve been told that we’re not ready, or that we shouldn’t try, or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people. Yes we can.”
- Speech following New Hampshire Primary January 8, 2008.
“Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause. Hope is what led me here today–with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be.”
- speech, Jan. 3, 2008
- Speech following New Hampshire Primary January 8, 2008.
“Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause. Hope is what led me here today–with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be.”
- speech, Jan. 3, 2008