Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, also named Barack Obama, was from Kogelo, a small village in Kenya, Africa; his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was from Kansas. Obama was raised by his single mother and his maternal grandparents.

Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a degree in political science. He then moved to Chicago, Illinois, and worked as a community organizer. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991, where he was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review (a very prestigious magazine about law, edited by Harvard law students). He moved back to Chicago and married Michelle Robinson in 1992; they have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, 1998, and 2002 (he lost a primary bid for the House of Representatives in 2000). He was elected to the US Senate in 2004 (Dem-IL). Obama has written two books, Dreams from My Father (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006).