Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii) is since 20 January 2009 the 44th President of the United States. The lawyer and politician of the Democratic Party is Kenyan-American descent, and thus the first African American in this position.

From 2005 to 2008 was the Obama dienstjüngere of the two U.S. Senators (junior Senators) for the state of Illinois.

2009 was to him the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to strengthen the international diplomacy and cooperation between the peoples recognized.

Family, Childhood and Adolescence

Obama's father, Barack Hussein Obama Senior (1936-1982), came from Alego in Kenya and was part of the Luo people. Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham (1942-1995), was a white American from Wichita in the U.S. state of Kansas. The two met as students at the University of Manoa, Hawaii know. They were married were banned in 1961 in Hawaii, as in other parts of the United States marriages between blacks and whites still.

In 1964 she got divorced. The father continued his studies at Harvard University. Obama saw it as a ten year old the last time his father's side he has three older and three younger half-brothers and half-sister Auma called, who studied in Heidelberg and Bayreuth.

The mother of a doctorate as an anthropologist and became a specialist in development issues, particularly in the area of small loans. She married an Indonesian, and oil executives, and later moved with him and her son Barack in 1967 after Jakarta. There, Obama's younger half-sister Maya was born ..

During the stay of the mother in Indonesia, Obama attended from 1967 to 1970 in Jakarta, led by the Capuchins of St. Francis of Assisi Elementary School, 1970/71 state, multi-religious school. In 1971 he returned to Hawaii, where he taunted the parents of his mother, Madelyn (1922-2008) and Stanley Dunham (1918-1992). She trained him in the fifth class of the prestigious private Punahou School. This school in 1979, he graduated with distinction. His own mother died of cancer in mid-50s.
Michelle and Barack Obama

Barack Obama has been married since 1992 to Michelle Obama (born 1964), which he studied at Harvard Law School and Washington before moving to a position in public administration from Chicago had been held. They met at the law firm know, worked in the Michelle after her graduation in 1988 and the trainee Barack Obama was assigned as a tutor. They have two daughters: Malia Ann (born 1998) and Natasha ( "Sasha") (* 2001).
Studies and career

Obama graduated from in 1979 for two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles and another two years at Columbia University in New York City. After completing his bachelor's degree in 1983 in Political Science (focus on International Relations), he worked for a year for the marketing consulting firm Business International Corporation in New York. In 1985 he moved to Chicago and worked for a nonprofit organization, helped the church communities to work training for residents of poor neighborhoods. After three years Obama studied law at Harvard Law School. As the first African-American, he was then elected president of the Harvard Law Review journal. 1991 Obama received his JD degree magna cum laude with an overall assessment.

In 1992 he returned to Chicago, worked from 1993, which specializes in civil rights law firm Miner, Barnhill and Galland, and taught constitutional law until 2004 at the University of Chicago.

Beginning of the political career

1992 Obama first became politically active: A campaign of voter registration of African-American citizens of Chicago, he mobilized more than 150,000 people to vote for U.S. President Bill Clinton.

1996 Obama was in the Illinois Senate representing the 13th District (the southern parts of the city of Chicago included, selected around the Hyde Park neighborhood). In the Senate, he took over the chairmanship of the Committee on Public Health and Welfare. He wrote with a legislative initiative, which provided support for poor working families and was working on a template to help people without health insurance. In addition, he helped organizations who stand up for gays and lesbians, and sat through an increase in funding for AIDS prevention and treatment.

1998 - against the Republicans Yesse Yehudah - and 2002 - this time without opposition - Obama was reelected to the Senate from Illinois. On his way to record legislative initiatives in Illinois, the police interrogations of death penalty on charges of video. Health insurance costs need to take regular preventive mammograms. In addition, arms control has been tightened. For these and other projects could form coalitions with Obama political opponents. But he also found favor with opponents of his initiatives such as the police union Fraternal Order of Police.

2000 Obama defeated in the primaries of the Democratic Party in the First Congressional District for the House of Representatives against the long-term owner Bobby L. Rush.

U.S. Senator and campaigning

2004 applied for Obama for the Democratic Party for a seat in the U.S. Senate and won in the primaries in March, surprising 52 percent of the vote. The New York Times spoke of a "rising star" among the Democrats. Designed by media consultant David Axelrod, Obama campaign was in the tradition of the first African American mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington, and U.S. Senator Paul Simon, who recorded just before his death, an election advertisement for Obama.

In the main contest was Jack Ryan, the initial opponent of the Republicans, on the 25th Back in June 2004 after his divorce records and an order to monitor Obama had become publicly known. On 8 August 2004 nominated second opponent, the conservative Alan Keyes from Maryland, now only rented a residence in Illinois and led a deeply divisive election campaign: He compared Obama's voters with those of the Nazi Party called homosexuals "selfish hedonists", described Obama's opinion about abortion raped women as a "position of the slave owners and declared that Jesus would not vote for Obama.

Obama's head start allowed him to support Democratic candidates in other election campaigns, with performances and donations. So he helped about Melissa Bean, her constituency in the northern suburbs of Chicago for the first time since 1935 win for the Democrats.

End of July, Obama held a keynote speech (keynote) at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, which has named the former presidential candidate John Kerry. He described to his family history, which gave reasons for his belief in the American dream. His grandfather had benefited as a U.S. soldier returned home during the Second World War by the welfare programs of the FHA and the GI Bill. He himself had great hope for the future of his daughters, because in a 'generous America you do not need to be rich to exploit its potential. Toward the end, he spoke out for the American identity and national unity:

"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America, there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America, there's the United States of America. (...) The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we do not like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. "

Obama's speech sparked enthusiasm, made him known throughout the U.S., gained him much sympathy in the media and support by the U.S. citizens. He was henceforth regarded as the most successful political rising stars of the Democrats and a possible future candidate for the presidency.

He won the election with 70 to 27 percent, the highest-scoring entrant for the senator and the highest results, that a candidate had ever won in an Illinois-wide election against an opponent.

Official guidance and initiatives

From the 4th January 2005 represented alongside the senior Obama Dick Durbin to Illinois in the U.S. Senate. In its introductory phase, he gave up publicity campaigns. His vote for the confirmation of Condoleezza Rice as U.S. Secretary of State met with criticism of the party left. In March 2005 - quite early - he announced the creation of a separate Political Action Committee.

2005 and 2006, initiated by Obama 152 bills and Senate resolutions and supported further 427th His first at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville public gathering of legislative initiative in March 2005 was to lift the maximum amount of Pell Grants, and thus help college students pay their college fees. The draft but never reached the Senate for a vote.

Obama was a member of the following Senate committees: External Relations, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Homeland Security and State Affairs and Veterans Affairs.

In August 2005 Obama and Richard Lugar visited the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. Main purpose of the trip was to improve the level of control of weapons of mass destruction of all kinds. In addition, they visited Saratov one from the Nunn-Lugar program-supported institution for the destruction of nuclear warheads. In Ukraine, they toured a facility to prevent and control infectious diseases and were at the conclusion of an agreement with Ukraine, the United States also, which is used to detect bioterrorism, so the distinction between natural or artificial pathogens and combat risks at the outbreak of infectious diseases.

In January 2006, Obama visited with a delegation of U.S. Congress, various states in the Middle East. In Kuwait and Iraq, he visited the U.S. troops there and noted publicly that the conflict there was not militarily feasible. In Israel he met Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, in the Palestinian territories, Mahmoud Abbas. He stressed that the United States were not prepared to accept the participation of Hamas in the Palestinian government, as long as they strive for Israel's destruction.

In August 2006, Obama traveled with his family to South Africa and Kenya that included stops in Ethiopia and Chad. In Kenya, he visited the birthplace of his father and was taken by the local population mostly enthusiastic. To convince more Kenyans an HIV test, the couple left Obama in a Kenyan public hospital to test for HIV. Obama's speech to students at the University of Nairobi was broadcast nationwide on television. He criticized the fact that corruption and the influence of ethnic rivalries in Kenyan politics.

On 30 January 2007 he presented a plan by stages to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by 31 Before March 2008.

In July 2008 Obama attended as a prospective Democratic presidential candidate, accompanied by Senators Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel, the first U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then held talks with political leaders in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and finally went to Germany, France and UK. In Berlin, he held after meeting with Angela Merkel, Frank-Walter Stein Meier and Klaus Wowereit, 24 July in front of 200,000 spectators, the central question of the visit to Europe, which was broadcast live worldwide.

As three days previously announced, Obama appeared on 16 November 2008, twelve days after his victory in the presidential election, back as a senator from Illinois. Under suspicion of corruption, the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, Roland Burris appointed to succeed him.

Biografie (nach Wikipedia, leicht gekürzt)