Barack Obama

Portrait, 2012

Barack Hussein Obama II

44th President of the United States

In office January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2017

Vice President Joe Biden

Preceded by George W. Bush

Succeeded by Donald Trump

Born August 4, 1961 (age 63) Honolulu , Hawaii , U.S.

Political party Democratic

Spouse Michelle Obama (m. 1992)

Children 2 ( Malia Obama , Sasha Obama )

Born in Honolulu , Hawaii , to a Kenyan father and an American mother, Obama had a multicultural upbringing that included time in Indonesia during his childhood. He graduated from Columbia University in 1983 and Harvard Law School in 1991, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review . His early career included community organizing on Chicago's South Side , civil rights litigation, and teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School .

Obama entered politics in the Illinois State Senate in 1997, advanced to the U.S. Senate in 2004 after a high-profile keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention , and won the presidency in 2008 amid the Great Recession , defeating John McCain . He was reelected in 2012 against Mitt Romney . His presidency featured major domestic reforms such as the Affordable Care Act , which expanded health coverage to millions; the Dodd-Frank Act ; economic stimulus measures that aided recovery from the Great Recession ; and support for progressive social changes including the evolution toward marriage equality. In foreign policy, his administration ended the Iraq War combat mission, ordered the operation that killed Osama bin Laden , pursued the Iran nuclear deal , and joined the Paris Agreement .

However, his tenure also drew criticism for expanded use of drone strikes in counterterrorism campaigns, which raised concerns over civilian casualties and due process; military intervention in Libya in 2011 that contributed to subsequent instability; record-high deportations of undocumented immigrants; failure to close Guantanamo Bay detention camp; and revelations of widespread surveillance programs. Partisan polarization often limited legislative achievements, leading to greater reliance on executive actions.

Since leaving office, Obama has engaged in writing (including best-selling memoirs), media production via Higher Ground Productions, leadership of the Obama Foundation , and occasional commentary on political issues. His legacy remains debated: praised by supporters for advancing health care access, economic stability, and diplomatic engagement, while critiqued by opponents for executive overreach, foreign policy outcomes, and unfulfilled promises of post-partisan governance.

Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu , Hawaii , to Barack Hussein Obama Sr. , a Kenyan economist from the Luo ethnic group, and Stanley Ann Dunham, an American anthropologist of mostly English descent born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1942. His parents met at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where Obama Sr. arrived in 1959 on a scholarship to study economics and Dunham was an undergraduate influenced by leftist academics. They married shortly before his birth but separated two years later; Obama Sr. then pursued a master's at Harvard University, saw his son once more, and returned to Kenya in 1964.

Obama Sr., born around 1936 in Nyang'oma Kogelo , grew up in a polygamous family, advanced through Kenyan schools and U.S. studies, and later served as a senior economist in Kenya's government, though he struggled with alcoholism and died in a car accident in 1982. Dunham, raised by her parents—Stanley Armour Dunham, a World War II veteran and furniture salesman, and Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham—earned a bachelor's in anthropology from the University of Hawaii and a PhD in 1992 focused on Indonesian rural development. After the divorce, she raised young Obama in Hawaii with her parents' assistance, who had relocated there from the Midwest for work.