BarackObama's profile

Eons member since

May 21, 2007

Real name

Barack Obama

Age, Gender

47, Male

Location

Chicago, IL

Relationship

Married

Hometown

Chicago, IL

Places I've been

Education

• Punahou High School - 1975 to 1979
• Occidental College - 1979 to 1981
• Columbia University, Politcal Science - 1981 to 1983
• Harvard Law School - 1988 to 1991

Work

• Developing Communities Project, Director, Community Organizer - 1985 to 1988
• Project Vote, Community Organizer - 1992 to 1992
• Miner, Barnhill & Galland, Lawyer, Partner as of 1996 - 1993 to 2002
• University of Chicago, Senior Lecturer - 1993 to 2004
• Illinois State Senate, State Senator - 1997 to 2004
• United States Senate, United States Senator - 2004 to 2007

More about me

Barack Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii. His mother was a student there, and his father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams in America.

Remembering the values of empathy and service that his mother taught him, Barack put law school and corporate life on hold after college and moved to Chicago in 1985, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment.

He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he returned to Chicago, turning down lucrative job offers to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. In 1992, he led Project Vote, the most successful voting drive for Bill Clinton. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he became the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

The rich and varied experiences of Barack Obama's life - growing up in different places with people who had differing ideas - have animated his political journey. Amid the partisanship and bickering of today's public debate, he still believes in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose - a politics that puts solving the challenges of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and political gain.

Whether it's the poverty exposed by Katrina, the genocide in Darfur, or the role of faith in our politics, Barack Obama continues to speak out on the issues that will define America in the 21st century. But above all his accomplishments and experiences, he is most proud and grateful for his family. His wife, Michelle, and his two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, live on Chicago's South Side.

Activities

Basketball, writing, loafing w/ kids

Favorite Music

Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Johann Sebastian Bach (cello suites), and The Fugees

Favorite TV Shows

Sportscenter

Favorite Movies

Casablanca, Godfather I & II, Lawrence of Arabia and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Favorite Books

Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Moby Dick, Shakespeare's Tragedies, Parting the Waters, Gilead (Robinson), Self-Reliance (Emerson), The Bible, Lincoln's Collected Writings

Favorite Quotes

"The Arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." (MLK)

More "About"

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