Barack Obama
President Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office and was reelected for a second term on November 4, 2012. Known as a champion of the middle class, Obama embraced a ‘color-blind ideology’ early on in his first term and continues to be seen as a transformative figure when it comes to race in America. Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School and was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000. In 2004, Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November. He began his presidential campaign in 2007, and in 2008, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic primaries to receive the presidential nomination. He defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama received the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. He began his second term last month.
