For other uses, see Barack disambiguation and Obama disambiguation. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois from until he resigned following his election to the presidency. He was inaugurated as President on January 20, He worked as a community organizer, and practiced as a civil rights attorney in Chicago before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from to Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U. House of Representatives in , Obama was elected to the Senate in November Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July As a member of the Democratic minority in the th Congress, Obama helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds.
During the th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for U. After her divorce, Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro, who was attending college in Hawaii. When Soeharto, a military leader in Soetoro's home country, came to power in , all students studying abroad were recalled and the family moved to Indonesia. Francis of Assisi School, until he was ten years old.
He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Armour Dunham, while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in until his graduation from high school in She stayed there most of the rest of her life, returning to Hawaii in She died of ovarian cancer in Of his early childhood, Obama has recalled, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me — that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk — barely registered in my mind.
Some of his fellow students at Punahou School later told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that Obama was mature for his age, and that he sometimes attended college parties and other events in order to associate with African American students and military service people.
Reflecting later on his formative years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered — to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect — became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear. Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years. He worked there for three years from June to May His achievements included helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.
