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Author: Jude Aririesike
Posted to the web: 1/2/2010 2:28:01 AM

On the 4th of November 2008 history was made allaround the world particularly in the United States of America when anAfro-American middle-aged man Barack Obama was elected the 44thpresident of United States of America and indeed the first Afro-Americandescent to ascend such an exalted position. His election was a huge andtremendous sharp contrast from the old world order in the United States ofAmerica.

President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961 to aKenyan father and a mother from Kansas City. He was raised with help from hisgrandfather, who served in Patton's army, and his grandmother, who worked herway up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank.

After working his way through college with the help ofscholarships and student loans, President Obama moved to Chicago, where heworked with a group of churches to help rebuild communities devastated by theclosure of local steel plants.

Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard LawSchool, where he became the first Afro-American president of the Harvard Law Review. He was acommunity organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as acivil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at theUniversity of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House ofRepresentatives in 2000, he ran for United States Senate in 2004. During thecampaign, several events brought him to national attention, such as his victoryin the March 2004 Democratic primary election for the United States Senatorfrom Illinois as well as his prime-time televised keynote address at theDemocratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senatein November 2004

President Obama's years of public service are based aroundhis unwavering belief in the ability to unite people around a politics ofpurpose. In the Illinois State Senate, he passed the first major ethics reformin 25 years, cut taxes for working families, and expanded health care forchildren and their parents.

As a United States Senator, he reached across the aisle topass groundbreaking lobbying reform, lock up the world's most dangerousweapons, and bring transparency to government by putting federal spendingonline.

BarackObama was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008,and sworn in on January 20, 2009. In his first few days in officeObama issued executive orders and presidential memoranda directing the U.S. militaryto develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, and ordered theclosing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp 'as soon as practicable andno later than” January 2010.

Obama also reduced the secrecy givento presidential records and changed procedures to promote disclosureunder the Freedom of Information Act. The president also reversed George W.Bush's ban on federal funding to foreign establishments that allow abortions knownas the Mexico City Policy and referred to by critics as the 'Global Gag Rule”.

On January 29, 2009, Obama signedhis first bill into law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, a responseto the Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire &Rubber Co. which eased the requirements for filing employmentdiscrimination lawsuits. Five days later, he signed thereauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) tocover an additional 4 million children currently uninsured.

Barack Obama also repealed aBush-era policy that prevented federal tax dollars from being used to fundresearch on new lines of embryonic stem cells. Although such research had beena matter of debate, Obama stated that he believed 'sound science and moralvalues...are not inconsistent,' and that we have 'the humanity andconscience' to pursue this research responsibly, pledging to develop'strict guidelines' to ensure that.

Obama is currently the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. He and hiswife, Michelle, are the proud parents of two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha,7.

Significantly, the story of Barack Obama is quintessentialAmerica dream and the “can do” spirit. Barack Obama has achieved some manyfeats and firsts. He is the firstAfro-American to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review. He is the first Afro-American to be electedto the White House. Barack Obama is most importantly the first Afro-Americanpresident to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

 The success of Obama portrayssheer doggedness and his ability to rise above ethnic and racial sentiments tofight for his beliefs which undoubtedly have brought him this far. Interestingly,Obamaâ's candidacy in 2008 enjoyed huge support across ethnic and xenophobicinclinations. Today, young people all over the world wish to be like BarackObama and indeed he will continue to be a source of inspiration to a whole lotof people for a long time to come.

Sources: Wikipedia.Com,White House.Gov