About Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States, having taken office in 2009. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his election to the presidency in November 2008.   A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He 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.   Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, he