Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (; born August 4, 1961) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. He previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois (2005–2008). Obama was born in 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, two years after the territory was admitted to the Union as the 50th state. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, he
United States Senate career of Barack Obama Hampshire University (2007), Howard University (2007), and Wesleyan University (2008). The audiobook edition of "Dreams from My Father" earned Obama the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2006. He won the award a second time in 2008 for the spoken word edition of "The Audacity of Hope". A school in Obama's father's hometown, which the senator visited on his 2006 Kenya trip, was renamed the Senator Barack Obama Primary School. United States Senate career of Barack Obama The United States Senate career of Barack Obama began on January 3, 2005 and ended on November 16, 2008. He resigned