“You’re one articulate fella!”
- President Bush to Obama after his Senate victory
His Family
- Barack comes from a family that takes pride in being ahead of its
time; in 1960, the year that Barack’s parents were married, interracial
marriage was considered a felony in over half of the states in the US.
- On the other side of that coin, Barack can trace his family’s
heritage back to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.
His Early Years
- Barack lived in Indonesia for four years during his childhood after
his mother married an Indonesian man named Lolo, which means “crazy” in
Hawaiian.
- While in Indonesia, Barack attended a Muslim school for two years. His
first name means "blessing."
- Barack's favorite sport: basketball. He played on the Punahouteam team
(a private school in Hawaii).
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| Barack and his mother, Ann Dunham |
Barack Obama, the College Student |
College
- Unlike President Clinton, Barack freely admits to "inhaling" and
using
drugs in college: "That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role
of the young would-be black man. . . I got high [to] push questions of
who I was out of my mind." Though he now says that he hopes
today's
youth can learn from his example: a mistake here or there need not
prevent anyone from being successful in life.
- Obama knows the difficulty of transferring schools. He left Occidental
College in Los Angeles after two years to attend Columbia University in
New York City.
- Barack’s
college activities at Columbia: the Black Students Organization and anti-apartheid
activities. Besides that, he says, “I spent a lot of time in the
library. I didn’t socialize that much. I was like a monk.”
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| Barack, The Professor |
Barack, The Big Cheese |
Did you know? Obama is also a university professor.
He taught constitutional law and a seminar on civil rights at the University
of Chicago Law School. How does he rate as a professor? “They’d
love nothing better than to have him as a tenured professor,” says Judge
Abner Mikva, a former Congressman and a friend and colleague of Obama’s
at the University of Chicago. “His student ratings are off the charts.”
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| Obama & Ludacris |
- Obama recently met with hip-hop artist / actor Ludacris to discuss empowering
the youth and to kickoff an AIDS benefit in Chicago.
Have
Your Say: Discuss Obama's Personal Background in
our National Forum.
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