Early life and Education

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a Luo from Kenya, and Ann Dunham, a white American from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student. They separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama's father attended Harward Universtiy for his Doctor’s Degree and returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.

Young Obama and his family

After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979. Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for several years and then back to Indonesia to complete fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation. She died of ovarian cancer in 1995.

Young Obama and his mother

As an adult Obama admitted that during high school he used marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol, which he described at the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency as his greatest moral failure.

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.

Career

Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, then at the start of the following year worked for a year at the Business International Corporation and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP) and worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. At the end of his first year, he was selected, based on his grades and a writing competition, as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. In February 1990, in his second year, he was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the Law Review's staff of eighty editors.

After graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.

He served from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation.

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. He resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate.

2008 Election

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. Throughout the campaign, Obama has emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care. And he promised “change” in the campaign course.

Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black president Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself. "Change has come," he declared to a huge throng of cheering supporters.

The Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa and more.

 

巴拉克?奧巴馬出生于夏威夷州檀香山，他的父親老巴拉克是生于肯尼亞的盧歐族人，母親安?杜漢姆（Ann Duham）出生于美國堪薩斯州的威奇托。

奧巴馬的父母在檀香山瑪諾亞的夏威夷大學上學時相識，當時他的父親以國際學生身份在校求學。奧巴馬兩歲時，父母分居，之后離婚。此后，他的父親便前往哈佛大學攻讀博士學位，之后返回肯尼亞。1982年，老巴拉克在一場車禍中喪生，此前他與兒子只見過一次面。

離婚后，奧巴馬的母親嫁給了一位印度尼西亞籍的學生Lolo Soetoro。1967年，奧巴馬六歲時，與母親一家遷居到雅加達并在當地的學校上學。四年后，奧巴馬回到夏威夷，與外祖父母生活在一起。從五年級起，奧巴馬就讀于位于檀香山的大型私立學校畔拿荷學校，并于1979年畢業。

1972，奧巴馬的母親回到夏威夷并在這待了幾年，之后為了完成她的博士論文，她又返回印度尼西亞進行實地考察和調研。奧巴馬的母親于1995年因卵巢癌去世。

在中學時代，奧巴馬吸食過大麻和可卡因，他在“2008年總統公民論壇”上表示，這是他一生中最大的道德失敗。

高中畢業后，奧巴馬在加州洛杉磯的西方學院（Occidental College）求學兩年，隨后轉至紐約市的哥倫比亞大學，在那里主修政治學及國際關系。

職業生涯

1983年在哥倫比亞大學取得學士學位后，奧巴馬在“國際商務集團”和“紐約公共利益研究所”工作了一年。

1985年，他遷往芝加哥，并在之后的三年主持了一個社區發展計劃。

奧巴馬于1988年底進入哈佛法學院。第一年年末，奧巴馬憑借其出色的成績和在一次論文比賽中脫穎而出，被選為《哈佛法律評論》的編輯。1990年2月，他被選為該學術期刊的主席，任全職主編，手下有八名編輯。

1991年，奧巴馬在哈佛大學獲得了“極優等”（拉丁文的學位榮譽，magna cum laude）法學士的學位，并回到芝加哥。1994年至2002年，奧巴馬分別在芝加哥森林基金會和喬伊斯基金會的董事會任職過一段時間。

1996年，奧巴馬進入政壇，當選伊利諾斯州參議員。2003年1月，奧巴馬被選為伊利諾斯州衛生公共服務委員會主席。2004年11月，他在國會選舉中當選伊利諾斯州聯邦參議員。

2008年參加美國大選

2007年2月10日，奧巴馬在伊利諾斯州首府春田市的老州政府大廈前正式宣布參加2008年總統大選。伊拉克戰爭、增大能源自主和全民醫療保險是奧巴馬競選綱領所關注的三大主要問題。此外，“變化”是奧巴馬的競選主題。

Barack Obama, US new president-elect makes appearace in Chicago before delivering his victory speech with his wife, Michelle and two daughters, November 4, 2008

巴拉克?奧巴馬在美國當地時間周二的晚間以壓倒性優勢獲勝，成為美國首位黑人總統。這一結果顛覆了美國有史以來存在的種族隔閡現狀。他在獲勝后對歡慶勝利的眾多支持者們喊道：“變革的時代來了。”

這位伊利諾斯州民主黨參議員在俄亥俄、佛羅里達、弗吉尼亞、愛荷華等幾個角逐激烈的戰場州擊敗共和黨參議員約翰?麥凱恩之后，這一歷史性勝利的局面便已鎖定。

（英語點津姍姍編輯）