Election 2008 – History Redefined!
by Bernadette A. Morris, MPA (BPRW)
Barack Obama is the President - Elect of the United States of America. The free world. The land of the free. The home of the brave.
No longer does color boundaries define the measure of a man (or a woman). Praise God!
President-Elect Obama experienced an unusual upbringing. He was born in Hawaii in 1961 to Barack Obama Sr., a native of Kenya, and the former Ann Dunham, originally from Kansas. His parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. After his parents divorced, Barack Jr. lived with his mother who raised him in Hawaii and Indonesia.
After graduating from high school, Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles. He later transferred to Columbia University in New York and graduated in 1983. In 1985, he moved to Chicago and became involved in community organizing in poor neighborhoods. Obama enrolled in Harvard University and earned a law degree in 1991. While there, he also became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.
He eventually returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. He ran for the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. Then in 2004, he became the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate. He also gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention that same year.
In addition to his legal and political careers, Barack Obama is the author of two books. The first was his personal memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, originally published in 1995. His second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, was published in 2006. At present, he resides in Chicago with his wife Michelle and two daughters, Sasha and Malia.
Come January 2009, his new home will be the White House. Can you believe it? In our lifetime! Congratulations and God speed President – Elect Barack Obama. History is redefined. We must never look back – but press on. There truly is light at the end of the tunnel.
