Introduction

Barack Obama was born at Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu,
Hawaii, United States, to Stanley Ann Dunham, an American of predominantly English descent
from Wichita, Kansas, and Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province,
Kenya Colony. Obama is the first President to have been born in Hawaii. From ages six to ten,
Obama attended local schools in Jakarta, including Besuki Public School and St. Francis of Assisi
School.

In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and
Stanley Armour Dunham, and attended Punahou School, a private college preparatory school,
from the fifth grade until his graduation from high school in 1979. Following high school, Obama
moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to attend Occidental College.[24] After two years he transferred
in 1981 to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a
specialization in international relations[25] and graduated with a B.A. in 1983. He worked for a
year at the Business International Corporation,[26][27] then at the New York Public Interest
Research Group.

Chicago community organizer and Harvard Law School

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of
the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally
comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman and Riverdale)
on Chicago's far South Side.