Senator Barack Obama (D-IL)
BARACK OBAMA is best known for his stirring call for a more unified, more hopeful America in his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. But long before that moment, Senator Barack Obama has worked to build this America throughout his many years of public service.
With his mother hailing from Kansas and his father from Kenya, Senator Obama grew up seeing America from varied places and viewpoints—from his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia to his years in New York and Chicago, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group shortly after college.
While the group had some success, he soon came to realize that to truly improve people’s lives, it would take not just local change, but a change in our laws and in our politics.
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 started to practice as a civil rights lawyer in Chicago. He then ran for the Illinois State Senate, where he served for seven years.
In that time, he bridged divides between Democrats and Republicans to make progress for Illinois families—from expanding children’s health care to providing tax cuts for the working poor; from passing a ban on racial profiling to enacting welfare, ethics, and death penalty reforms.
In 2002, Senator Obama gave a speech that opposed the invasion of Iraq, placing him alone among today’s major presidential contenders in holding that position. In 2003, he launched his improbable race for the United States Senate and since his election has focused on tackling our challenges with fresh thinking and a new kind of politics that no longer settles for the lowest common denominator. He was his party’s point person on passing the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate, and he’s worked with Republican Senator Dick Lugar to pass a law that will prevent some of the world’s most deadly weapons from falling into terrorist hands.
Above all he is most proud and grateful for his family. His wife, Michelle, and his two daughters, Malia, 8, and Sasha, 5, live on Chicago’s South Side where they attend Trinity United Church of Christ
