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Barack Obama

44th President of the United States

United States Department of State / Bureau of International Information Programs

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In this excerpt from one of his speeches, BarackObama talks about a time in his life when he “began to notice a world beyond myself” and about his desire to be an agent of change. These remarks were made in a commencement ad-dress at Wesleyan University, Middletown,Connecticut, May 25, 2008.

became active in the movement to op-pose the apartheid regime o South A-rica. I began ollowing the debates inthis country about poverty and healthcare. So that by the time I graduatedrom college, I was possessed with a crazy idea— that I would work at a grassroots level tobring about change.I wrote letters to every organization in thecountry I could think o. And one day, a smallgroup o churches on the South Side o Chi-cago oered me a job to come work as a com-munity organizer in neighborhoods that hadbeen devastated by steel plant closings. My mother and grandparents wanted me to go tolaw school. My riends were applying to jobson Wall Street. Meanwhile, this organizationoered me $12,000 a year plus $2,000 or anold, beat-up car. And I said yes.Now, I didn’t know a soul in Chicago, and I wasn’t sure what this community organizingbusiness was all about. I had always been in-

Barack Obama

44th President of the United States

spired by stories o the Civil Rights Movementand JFK’s [President John F. Kennedy’s] call toservice, but when I got to the South Side, there were no marches, and no soaring speeches. Inthe shadow o an empty steel plant, there were just a lot o olks who were struggling. And wedidn’t get very ar at irst.I still remember one o the very irst meet-ings we put together to discuss gang violence with a group o community leaders. We waitedand waited or people to show up, and inally,a group o older people walked into the hall.And they sat down. And a little old lady raisedher hand and asked, “Is this where the bingogame is?”It wasn’t easy, but eventually, we made prog-ress. Day by day, block by block, we broughtthe community together, and registered new voters, and set up ater-school programs, andought or new jobs, and helped people livelives with some measure o dignity.But I also began to realize that I wasn’t justhelping other people. Through service, I ounda community that embraced me; citizenshipthat was meaningul; the direction I’d beenseeking. Through service, I discovered how my own improbable story it into the largerstory o America.

In His Own Words

Contents

Barack Obama ~ An American Lie ..........................................

Barack Obama’s Vision or the Future .......................................

Meet the Obama Family ...........................................................

Vice President Joseph Biden .....................................................

Barack Obama ~ An American Life

arack Obama’s unique biography and successul campaign or theU.S. presidency have opened anew chapter in U.S. politics.President Obama, the irst Arican-Americanpresident o the United States, brings a lie story unlike that o any previous U.S. leader. The bi-racial son o a Kenyan ather and a white motherrom the American heartland, Obama shot tonational prominence with a well-received keynotespeech at the Democratic National Conventionin 2004, the same year he was elected to the U.S.Senate rom the state o Illinois. Just our yearslater, he rose to the top o a ield crowded withDemocratic heavyweights to clinch his party’snomination or the White House and win thepresidential election against Republican candi-date Senator John McCain. With a polished speaking style, a command o eloquent and upliting rhetoric, the ability toinspire the enthusiasm o young voters, and thesophisticated use o the Internet as a campaigntool, Obama was very much a 21st-century can-didate. In his campaign, Obama stressed twooverarching themes: changing Washington’s tra-ditional way o conducting the nation’s businessand invoking Americans o diverse ideological,social, and racial backgrounds to unite or thecommon good.“There’s not a liberal America and a conser- vative America — there’s the United States o America,” Obama said in his address to the 2004Democratic National Convention. “There’s nota black America and white America and LatinoAmerica and Asian America; there’s the UnitedStates o America. … We are one people, all o us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, allo us deending the United States o America.”

The Early Years

Obama’s parents came rom vastly dierentbackgrounds. His mother, Ann Dunham, wasborn and raised in small-town Kansas. Ater heramily moved to the Hawaiian Islands, she metBarack Obama Sr., a Kenyan scholarship stu-dent enrolled at the University o Hawaii. Thetwo married in 1959, and on August 4, 1961,Barack Obama Jr. was born in Honolulu. Two years later the senior Obama let his new amily,irst or graduate study at Harvard and then ora job as a government economist back in Kenya. The young Obama met his ather again only once, at age 10.

hen Obama was six, his mother remar-ried, this time to an Indonesian oil ex-ecutive. The amily moved to Indonesia, andObama spent our years attending school in thecapital city o Jakarta. He eventually returned toHawaii and went to high school there while liv-ing with his maternal grandparents.In his irst book,

Dreams from My Father

, Obamadescribes this period o his lie as having more

Barack Obama, center, on his school’s junior varsity basketball team in Hawaii, 1977.

Celebrating his high school graduation with grandparents Madelyn Payne and Stanley Armour Dunham in Hawaii, 1979.

As a college student at Co- lumbia University in New York,circa1983.

Barack, age 10, and his Kenyan father, Barack Obama Sr.Nine-year-old Barack in Indonesia with his mother; stepather Lolo Soetoro; and half sister Maya.Young Barack with his mother, Ann Dunham, circa 1963.