Obama Barack - Barack Obama

CONTENTS

O n July 27, 2004, Barack Hussein Obama took the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Boston and delivered a speech that changed the course of American politics. He captivated his audience, asking, Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?

With the signature smooth delivery that the country would grow accustomed to, he described the kind of hope he was talking about. Its the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill workers son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

That skinny kid with a funny name electrified the crowd with his message of hope, offering words that would echo in his audiences ears. He spoke about hope in the face of difficulty and the audacity of hope, one of his favorite expressions (and the title of one of his best-selling books). He said that this hope is Gods greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead. With these words, Obama introduced himself to the nation as the next big thing in American politicsa force to be reckoned with, a talented speaker, a hardworking public servant, a gifted grassroots organizer, and an inspiration for a generation of Americans.

Americans took notice of Obama, not just because he was an eloquent senator or because he was a well-educated Chicago lawyer. They immediately saw that he was a walking version of the American dream. In his own words, his appearance onstage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention was pretty unlikely. He provided a brief snapshot of his family and heritage: My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.... His mother, he said, was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. They met when his father came from Africa to study at the University of Hawaii. Like any other parents, they had high hopes for their son. They wanted him to go to the best schools. They werent a wealthy couple, but they believed that it was possible because in a generous America, you dont have to be rich to achieve your potential.

DID YOU KNOW?

President Obamas official presidential portrait was the first ever taken with a digital camera.

Barack told his rapt audience, I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. And Americans took notice. Murmurs about his being the 2008 presidential candidate began then and there. He stepped onto the stage of the convention a little-known first-term senator from Illinois. He walked into the wings a new man: Barack Obama, the rapidly rising charismatic star of the Democratic Party.

Youthful, energetic, idealistic, eloquent, easy on the eyes, and not half-bad on the basketball court, he gave a lot of young Americans someone new to look up to. He reminded many people of John F. Kennedy or his brother Bobby. Even veteran politicians were blown away by his speech.

DID YOU KNOW?

President Obama is left-handed.

To many, his lightning-quick rise from junior senator to president of the United States was somewhere between unlikely and unfathomable. And yet, just four years later, he ascended another stage to speak before a crowd. Only this time, he was not introducing someone else or delivering a stump speech. Instead, he stood before the crowd to recite the Presidential Oath of Office and become the 44th president of the United States. Moments later, the new president delivered another address that would go down in history. America, he said, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words: with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our childrens children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and Gods grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

An estimated 1.5 to 4 million people braved the frigid January temperatures to witness the historic speech in person. Untold millions of people worldwide watched simultaneously, huddled in front of TV screens and computer monitors. Internet service providers struggled to keep up with the unprecedented numbers who watched the address on live streaming videoviewers even packed into auditoriums across the country to watch the event. On January 20, 2009, in a country that had given black Americans the right to vote fewer than 150 years earlier, Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the United States.

PRESIDENT OBAMA

ON HIS LEADERSHIP STYLE:

I think Ive got a good nose for talent, so I hire really good people. And Ive got a pretty healthy ego, so Im not scared of hiring the smartest people, even when theyre smarter than me. And I have a low tolerance of nonsense and turf battles and game-playing, and I send that message very clearly. And so over time, I think, people start trusting each other, and they stay focused on the mission, as opposed to personal ambition or grievance. If youve got really smart people who are all focused on the same mission, then usually you can get some things done.

B orn in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, to a white American mother and a father from Kenya, Barack Hussein Obama was raised mainly by his maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. His father, Barack Obama Sr., came from Kenya, a country in West Africa. As a young man Barack Obama Sr. herded goats with his own father and eventually earned a scholarship to the University of Hawaii, where he studied economics. While in college, the young Kenyan met and married Ann Dunham, who was born and raised in Kansas. When Barack Obama Jr. was just two years old, his father left Hawaii to continue his studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After Harvard, Barack Obama Sr. returned to Africa and remarried.