Barack Obama Sr. child Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama Sr. (; born Baraka Obama, 18 June 1934 – 24 November 1982) was a Kenyan senior governmental economist and the father of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. He is a central figure of his son's memoir, Dreams from My Father (1995). Obama married in 1954 and had two children with his first wife, Kezia. He was selected for a special program to attend college in the United States and studied at the University of Hawaii where he met Stanley Ann Dunham, whom he married in 1961 following the conception of his son, Barack II. Dunham divorced Obama three years later. The elder Obama later went to Harvard University for graduate school, where he earned an M.A. in economics, and returned to Kenya in 1964. He saw his son Barack once more, when his son was about 10.
In late 1964, Obama Sr. married Ruth Beatrice Baker, a Jewish-American woman he had met in Massachusetts. They had two sons together before separating in 1971 and divorcing in 1973. Obama first worked for an oil company, before beginning work as an economist with the Kenyan Ministry of Transport. He gained a promotion to senior economic analyst in the Ministry of Finance. He was among a cadre of young Kenyan men who had been educated in the West in a program supported by Tom Mboya. Obama Sr. had conflicts with Kenyan president Jomo Kenyatta, which adversely affected his career. He was fired and blacklisted in Kenya, finding it nearly impossible to get a job. Obama Sr. was involved in three serious car accidents during his final years; he died as a result of the last one in 1982.University of Hawaii
In 1959, Obama enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu as the university's first African foreign student. He initially lived across the street from the university at the Charles H. Atherton branch of the YMCA at 1810 University Avenue; public records from 1961 indicate he later had a residence two miles southeast of the university at 625 11th Avenue in the Kaimuki neighborhood.In 1960, Obama met Stanley Ann Dunham in a basic Russian language course at the University of Hawaii and they started dating. After becoming pregnant, Dunham dropped out of the University of Hawaii after the fall 1960 semester, while Obama continued his education. Obama married Dunham in Wailuku on the Hawaiian island of Maui on 2 February 1961, despite parental opposition from both families. He eventually told Dunham about his previous marriage in Kenya, but said he was divorced—which she found out years later was not true.Their son, future US president Barack Obama II, was born in Honolulu on 4 August 1961 at the former Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital (succeeded by the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children). His birth was announced in The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, with his parents' address listed as 6085 Kalanianaole Highway in the Kuliouou neighborhood of Honolulu, seven miles east of the university—the rented home of Dunham's parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. Soon after her son's birth, Dunham took the infant with her to Seattle, Washington, where she took classes at the University of Washington from September 1961 to June 1962.Obama Sr. continued his education at the University of Hawaii and in 1961–1962 lived one mile east of the university in the St. Louis Heights neighborhood. He graduated from the University of Hawaii after three years with a B.A. in economics and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He left Hawaii in June 1962.
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