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
First inauguration of Barack Obama inauguration, as Barack Obama placed his hand on the Bible and recited the presidential oath. Nearly four years earlier, then-Senator Obama had been one of 22 Senators to vote against Roberts during Roberts' Supreme Court nomination; the inauguration marked the first time a Chief Justice administered the oath to a President-elect who had previously voted against the Chief Justice's confirmation. Roberts and Obama made several mistakes as they recited the oath. The proper wording for the oath of office is prescribed in the Constitution: Roberts had practiced for the ceremony carefully. However, a memo noting his planned pauses in the