“HOPE: (noun) the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best: (verb) to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence.”
Remember back in grade school when the teacher would ask “what do you want to be when you grow up?” The answers would always go something like this, “I want to be a doctor”, “I want to be a teacher”, I’m going to be a nurse”, “I want to be a mommy” and so it went. These young minds were limited in their scope and limited by what they may have been taught at home and exposed to.
The teacher would usually add to those dreams by asking, how many of you want to be “astronauts, librarians, fire fighters.” How about “President of the United States of America!” President seemed like such a lofty goal for such young minds and hearts. Even more far reaching for African American children. There had not been any president alive who looked like them, not even the vice president. But children can and do have great dreams when parents, teachers and caregivers help them to believe. As a black child, that seemed light years away, but the possibility was kept alive by the challenges and successes that arose in the 1960’s where ‘hope’ was instilled in our hearts as blacks looked to the future.
July 2004, a tall, slender, bright eyed, eloquent African American speaker emerged during the Democratic National Convention for democratic nominee Al Gore. His name Barack Hussein Obama, II a young U.S. Senator from Illinois. Barack’s speech was compared to that of the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was then that not only America, but the world were introduced to this man of great hope and change. There was quite a buzz about the speech which touched many hearts and minds. He emerged as a leader during a time when America was on the verge of wanting true leadership for the people.
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IN THE BEGINNING…
Barack Hussein Obama, II was born on August 4, 1961 to an African father and a white mother. Barack Obama, Sr. a Kenyan was born in a small village in Kenya, Africa where he grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Barack’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in a small-town in Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Her mother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii. It was there, at the University of Hawaii, where Barack’s parents met. 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. Barack’s father eventually returned to Kenya, and Barack grew up with his mother in Hawaii, and for a few years in Indonesia.
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The College Years
Barack left Hawaii for New York after graduating from high school to attend Columbia University where he graduated in 1983. 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.
The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics.
In 1991, he went on to earn his law degree from Harvard, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate.
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BARACK OBAMA AND FAMILY
In 1992, he married Michelle Robinson, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Michelle is a lawyer who shares many of the same views as her husband. Barack says his greatest accomplishments and experiences he is most proud and grateful for is his family, Michelle, and his two daughter’s Malia, 10, and Sasha 7.
In a 2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family. "Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it's like a little mini-United Nations," he said. "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher.” Obama has seven half-siblings from his Kenyan father's family, six of them living, and a half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, the daughter of his mother and her Indonesian second husband. Obama's mother, who lost her battle with cancer. In Dreams from My Father, Obama ties his mother's family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, president of the southern Confederacy during the American Civil War.
In October 2008, Barack took time off during the last few weeks of his campaign to visit his 84 year old grandmother, Madelyn, who he affectionately called “Toot.” She had taken very ill due to cancer, the same fate that took his mother in 1995. He prays that she will be around long enough to see him become President of the United States of America! Unfortunately for Barack, Madelyn “Toot” Dunham passed away on Sunday, November 2nd, just two days before election day. Prior to succumbing, she was able to cast her vote for her grandson.
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SENATOR BARACK OBAMA
Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 where he served as state senator of the 13th district of Illinois until 2004. During his eight years in the Illinois state Senate, Senator Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided over $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state. He also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama enlisted the support of law enforcement officials to draft legislation requiring the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.
In July 2004, Obama wrote and delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. After describing his maternal grandfather's experiences as a World War II veteran and a beneficiary of the New Deal's FHA and G.I. Bill programs, Obama spoke about changing the U.S. government's economic and social priorities. He questioned the Bush administration's management of the Iraq War and highlighted America's obligations to its soldiers. Drawing examples from U.S. history, he criticized heavily partisan views of the electorate and asked Americans to find unity in diversity, saying, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America." Broadcasts of the speech by major news organizations launched Obama's status as a national political figure and boosted his campaign for U.S. Senate.
During 2004, Barack Obama ran and won the race for U.S. Senator representing the state of Illinois, becoming the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Sworn into office on January 4, 2005, Senator Obama has focused on tackling the challenges of a globalized, 21st-century world with fresh thinking and judgment that no longer settles for the lowest common denominator. Recognizing the terrorist threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with Republican Richard Lugar to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world. Understanding the threat we face to our economy and our security from America's addiction to oil, he's working to bring auto companies, unions, farmers, businesses, and politicians of both parties together to promote the greater use of alternative fuels and higher fuel standards in our cars. He has been a leading voice in championing ethics reform that would change the culture of corruption in Washington.
Barack Obama has dedicated his life to public service as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, and leader in the Illinois state Senate. He continues his fight for working families in the United States Senate.
He serves as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Veterans Affairs Committee, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
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OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT – HOPE/CHANGE!
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. The choice of the announcement site was symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic "House Divided" speech in 1858. Throughout the campaign, Obama has emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care, at one point identifying these as his top three priorities.
On August 23, 2008, Obama selected Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate. At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, Obama's former rival Hillary Clinton gave a speech strongly supporting Obama's candidacy and later called for Obama to be nominated by acclamation as the Democratic presidential candidate. Then, on August 28th, Obama delivered a speech to the 84,000 Supporters in Denver. During the speech, which was viewed by over 38 million people worldwide, he accepted his party's nomination and presented his policy goals, making him the first African American presidential nominee.
Whether it's the poverty exposed by Katrina, the genocide in Darfur, the needs of America’s veterans, or the challenges facing working Americans during hard economic times, Senator Obama continues to lead on the issues that will define America in the 21st century.
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President Barack Obama Makes History!
On Tuesday, November 4, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama, II has made history being elected as the first African American President of the United States of America. President Barack Obama will become the 44th President of the United States of America. He won by a historical overwhelming majority vote.
Barack Obama’s win was celebrated in his father’s homeland of Kenya, Africa, as well as Japan, France, and other parts of the world. The inauguration will take place on January 20th, 2009 in Washington, D.C. with over 1,000,000 expected to participate and will be an international event!
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BOOKS:
Be sure to read these books about Barack Obama:
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on reclaiming the American Dream
Dreams from my father: A Story of Race and Inheritance |
