Barack Obama: A Legacy of leadership, hope and change
When Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States at the age of 47, the former Illinois senator made history as the nation’s first African-American president and the first one born in a non-continental state. Despite being out of office for eight years, his influence, and the influence of his wife, Michelle Obama, hasn’t wavered. From his early days as a child in Hawaii to winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, President Obama’s legacy continues to inspire.
The early years
Barack Obama’s early years were influenced by his parent’s mixed-race marriage, divorce, life in a new country and adolescent life with maternal grandparents. He persevered through high academic achievements at Columbia and Harvard as he carved out an identity as a Black American.
Childhood and family background
Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., was born on August 4, 1961, in Hawaii. His father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., hailed from Kenya, and his mother, Ann Dunham, was a White woman from Wichita, Kansas. The couple met at the University of Hawaii but eventually separated, which resulted in Barack Sr. moving back to Kenya and Ann remarrying in 1965.
Sadly, Barack only saw his birth father once more before he passed away in a car accident in 1982. His mother’s remarriage to Lolo Soetoro resulted in a move to his stepfather’s native country, Indonesia, and the birth of a half-sister, Maya Soetoro Ng.
Education and early influences
“I was raised as an Indonesian child and a Hawaiian child and as a black child and as a white child,” Obama told the Miller Center. “And so what I benefited from is a multiplicity of cultures that all fed me.”
Obama got more insight into the complexities of being a mixed-race Black American male when he went to live with his maternal grandparents back in Hawaii at age 10. Despite its diverse landscape, Black Americans were barely present in the tropical non-continental state — as of 1970, the population was only 1.0% and only went up to 1.8% by 1980.
Barack Obama’s education included the elite Punahou School from 5th grade through high school. He later continued his education at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA, before transferring to Columbia University. After getting a degree in Political Science from Columbia in 1983, he furthered his education with a Law Degree from Harvard in 1991. \
Before graduating magna cum laude from the IVY league school, Obama became the first black editor of the “Harvard Law Review.” The attention from his editorial milestone led to a book deal to write his autobiography.
Political career
In a meteoric rise, Obama went from Illinois state senator to Democratic Presidential nominee in a decade. During this time, he wrote pivotal state legislation, had two books on the best-seller lists and beat the former first lady and late Senator John McCain for the nation’s highest office.
Entry into politics
Before running for office, Obama began working as a community organizer in Chicago on the South Side. In the 2007 biography, “Obama: From Promise to Power,” writer David Mendell wrote that this job gave Obama “his first deep immersion into the African American community he had longed to both understand and belong to.”
Some of the projects he launched included the Developing Community Project, a church-funded initiative mostly sponsored by White Catholic priests. In a move to involve more of the community, Obama worked on adding contacts and building relationships with more diverse church leaders, such as Rev. Alvin Love. He also helped pressure City Hall to improve conditions at the Altgeld Gardens housing project.
Illinois state senate
In 1997, Obama became a member of the Illinois State Senate in his first elected position. By 2003, he wrote a law requiring police to record their interrogations of murder suspects. He also helped negotiate a study concerning whether state police used race as a basis for how they treated motorists.
U.S. senate and presidential campaigns
By 2004, Obama moved on to the U.S. Senate after defeating Republican Alan Keyes — the first time two leading candidates were both Black American. The young Senator made his mark on the national stage when he delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention that same year. It struck a chord with people as he spoke about hope and unity while referencing his life story.
Before the speech, he was a senator with a low profile, afterwards, many hailed “the address an instant classic and drew comparisons to Martin Luther King Jr,” according to News Nation Now. Even television commentator Chris Matthews declared after the speech, “We’ve just seen the first black president.”
His life story referenced in the keynote ignited curiosity in the biography he wrote several years before and moved it onto bestseller lists. As his political star rose, he wrote a second book, “The Audacity of Hope” in 2006, which also became a bestseller. A year later, he announced plans to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.
Despite former First Lady Hillary Clinton being the favorite to win the nomination, Obama made history by clinching the win with 365 electoral votes on June 3, 2008. He would go on to beat the late Republican senator, John McCain, and become the first African American president of the United States. Over 1.8 million people attended his inauguration in 2009.
Major achievements and initiatives
The Obama administration had several noteworthy achievements that included accessible healthcare and education, financial protection for citizens and clean energy standards.
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
Understanding the need for better health insurance coverage in the United States, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law on March 23, 2010. This Act expanded health insurance by making it more affordable even without employer coverage, in part by regulating Marketplaces. The uninsured rate fell to a record low of 7.7% by 2023.
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform
In response to the 2008 financial crisis that saw banks fail and people lose homes, Obama created a law to protect consumers from exploitative lenders like predatory mortgages and excessive overdraft fees. The law included the formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which returned over $11 billion to victims of such lending practices.
Climate change and environmental policies
When speaking to Georgetown University in 2013, President Obama announced the Climate Action Plan (CAP). Through executive actions, agency regulations and international bilateral agreements, the goal of the plan was to promote clean energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) while positioning the United States as a world leader in addressing climate change. In 2015, the White House hosted the first-ever Summit on Climate Change and Health.
Education reform and access
Between 2014 and 2015, the high school graduation rate hit an all-time high during the Obama presidency at 83.2%. Per NPR, many advocates credited the administration for bringing attention to how “zero tolerance” discipline often unfairly targeted Black and Latino students. The “income-based” repayment plan came into fruition in 2009, which helped students make lower payments on large student loan burdens. Obama further helped students by reducing the interest rate on Stafford Loans.
Influence on social issues
The Fair Sentencing Act helped bridge the gap in the huge disparity between sentencing for crack versus powdered cocaine — a legal issue that disproportionately gave African Americans harsher sentences.
Obama also signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act that permits Justice Department jurisdiction on violent crimes where someone was targeted due to their sexual identity or orientation. During this time, same-sex marriage became legal and was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2015. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) provided temporary relief for child undocumented immigrants. It gave such children a two-year deferral from deportation.
While Obama was in office, he was able to honor the 50th Anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery in the fight for voting rights. The images of African Americans peacefully praying contrasted with state troopers violently pouncing on them went around the world and led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act. During his speech, Obama said, “Selma teaches us, too, that action requires that we shed our cynicism. For when it comes to the pursuit of justice, we can afford neither complacency nor despair.”
Economic impact
President Obama faced a major financial crisis in 2008 that caused many to worry about another Great Depression. Thanks to swift policies and wise federal spending, job growth had its longest expansion on record by early 2017. By the end of 2016, weekly pay also reached its highest level on record since 1979. ACA also made healthcare costs more manageable for households. The administration inherited a 9.8 % deficit that fell to 3.2 % by the end of that same year.
Regarding trade relations, the United States filed 20 enforcement complaints at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and won every single one of them when Obama was in office. The country also collaborated with Japan and the European Union (EU) on such disputes. American firms opened markets thanks to trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama and the signing of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) that provided training for adversely affected American workers.
Health and community development
President Barack Obama pulled from his community-organizing experience during his administration.
Focus on healthcare accessibility
Thanks to his commitment to passing ACA, no Americans could be denied healthcare — a problem that preexisting conditions often caused insurers to rule against. In other words, during Obama’s presidency, it was the closest the United States came to having universal healthcare. Before the Act, over 48 million people lacked coverage.
Urban development and infrastructure
Scott Bernstein, president of the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology, said,
“[Obama] paid attention to cities during the campaign. There was a division of the transition committee focused on cities. It’s been a really long time since the federal government had anything resembling an urban policy. The last real try at it was in the Carter administration.”
Obama created the White House Office of Urban Affairs in 2009. The office made a joint venture with the departments of Treasury, Agriculture and Health and Human Services called the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) to provide funding and tech help to ensure low-income communities have access to healthy food. As of 2024, the initiative has awarded $5.8 million in grants.
Collaboration with nonprofits and the private sector
In October 2012, President Obama announced $20 million in funding for 10 public-private partnerships to support manufacturing. The administration also launched the Clean Energy Impact Investment Center to make climate and energy information more accessible to the American public and investors.
Thanks to the administration’s call to climate care action, noteworthy investors like Goldman Sachs, Meyer Family Enterprises and the Edward Mother Earth Foundation, among others, made sizable investment pledges to develop clean energy solutions.
Leadership style and philosophy
It would be an understatement to say that Barack Obama is a strong orator. His ability to communicate clearly and strongly is what made him a star during the Democratic National Convention keynote delivery in 2006.
Despite inheriting a rough economic situation and even having his birthright questioned by future president Donald Trump, he held his own, remained calm and created policies and initiatives that reached across the aisle to different populations. His inclusive approach helped to deal with the cultural and political divide in America and within the Congress and Senate.
Obama’s strong diplomatic efforts earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, less than a year after taking office.
Post-presidency engagement
Barack and Michelle Obama decided to continue living in the Washington D.C. area after his White House term ended. However, the Barack Obama Presidential Library will add to South Side Chicago’s business prowess and inspire more local leaders, particularly Black male youth.
Obama’s post-presidential life has also included supporting his hometown football team, the Chicago Bears, on Monday Night Football in 2022 or being honored by other respected figures. In 2017, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg presented him with the Profiles in Courage Award at the John F. Kennedy Library.
Barack Obama campaigning for other groundbreaking presidential candidates also became common. He supported Hilary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024. According to a survey from the Pew Research Center, over 44% of respondents named President Obama the president who did the best job in their lifetime.
More About:Politics
