President Barack Obama

Barack Obama While African Americans made many remarkable advances in the years following the Civil Rights Era, it was not until this year, 2009, that an African American reached the very pinnacle of political power.  Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of office as President of the United States after his rapid ascent through the ranks of American politics.  Obama was the son of a white American mother and an African father who was raised in large part by his maternal grandparents in Hawaii.  He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1988 and moved to Chicago where he worked as an attorney, University instructor and community organizer.  He entered politics serving first in the Illinois State Legislature and then as a U.S. Senator, only the fifth African American in history to hold that office.   In his campaign for Senate, one of his signature issues was opposition to the war in Iraq, at a time when few politicians were willing to speak against it.  In 2007 he declared his candidacy for President and ran on a platform of ending the War, energy independence and universal health care.  He was elected the first African American President of the United States of America on November 4, 2008 and sworn in on January 20, 2009.  His ascent to the leadership of the United States marks one of the last remaining milestones of true equality for African Americans.