Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) was the forty-fourth President of the United States (2009 - 2017) and the first African American to hold the office. A constitutional law professor and U.S. senator from Illinois, he rose from a single keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention to the presidency in four years, defeating John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
Early life and rise
Born in Honolulu to a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother, Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review. He worked as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and served eight years in the Illinois Senate before winning his U.S. Senate seat in 2004. His memoir Dreams from My Father and his wife Michelle became national fixtures of the 2008 campaign, run on the one-word theme "Hope."
The first term: crisis and reform
Obama took office in the free fall of the Great Recession, with the economy losing 700,000 jobs a month. The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the auto industry rescue, and the stress-tested banking system stabilized the economy; the recovery that began in mid-2009 became the longest expansion in American history. The Dodd-Frank Act rewrote financial regulation.
His signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act of 2010, extended health coverage to more than 20 million people and ended denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, at the cost of a midterm "shellacking" that gave Republicans the House. In May 2011 he ordered the Navy SEAL raid into Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama bin Laden.
The second term
Reelected in 2012, Obama ended the Iraq combat mission and drew down Afghanistan, while grappling with the rise of ISIS, Russia's seizure of Crimea, and the Syrian civil war. He normalized relations with Cuba, concluded the Iran nuclear agreement, and led the world into the Paris climate accord of 2015. At home, the Supreme Court's Obergefell decision made marriage equality the law during a term in which he had become the first sitting president to endorse it. His eulogy after the Charleston church shooting, ending with the president singing "Amazing Grace," became one of the era's defining moments.
After the White House
Obama left office with high approval and remains, with Michelle, among the world's most admired public figures, writing (A Promised Land, 2020), producing films, and building his presidential center on Chicago's South Side.
Highlights of the Obama presidency
- The Recovery Act (2009) and the rescue from the Great Recession.
- The Affordable Care Act (2010).
- The bin Laden raid (2011).
- Marriage equality and the Obergefell era.
- The Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal (2015).
- The Nobel Peace Prize (2009), awarded in his first year.