Introduction
Barack Hussein Obama is the current President of the United States of America. He was elected in 2008 and reelected in 2013. During his time in the presidency, Obama contributed widely towards the development and welfare of America. He also took part in helping other countries especially those in the third world. His contributions can further be traced down the line even before he became the president. Obama had set history in many areas, and his achievements are countless.
Origin and Background
Obama was born in Hawaii at Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in 1961. His parents were Ann Dunham and Barack Obama. Sr. Ann Dunham was born in Wichita whereas his father was from Kogelo, Kenya. Obama’s parents met while at the University of Hawaii in 1960. They later married in Wailuku the following year, but they separated when Ann Dunham moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. Obama’s father was left in Hawaii where he completed his undergraduate course in 1962 and proceeded to Harvard University for his masters. In 1964, Obama’s parents divorced, and his father returned to Kenya and remarried. He visited his son only once. He later died in 1982 afteran automobile accident.
Obama’s mother met Lolo Soetoro at the University of Hawaii in 1963. In 1965, they married in Molokai. Lolo Soetoro returned to Indonesia, his home country, in 1966. Still as a small child, Obama and his mother went to Indonesia to live as a family. They lived in South Jakarta district and later relocated to Central Jakarta district in 1970. The following year, Obama returned to Honolulu where he lived with his grandparents. His mother returned to the University of Hawaii for masters, and Obama moved to stay with her and his sisters in Hawaii from 1972 to 1975. When Obama’s mother and sisters returned to Indonesia, Obama went back to staying with his grandparents. Hismother divorced Lolo Soetoro in 1980. She earned her Ph.D. in 1982 and died in 1995 after treatment for uterine and ovarian cancers.[1]
Early Life and Education
Between the ages of six to ten, Obama studied at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School, Besuki Public School, and Calvert School. When he returned to live with his parents in 1971, he got a scholarship to attend a private college preparatory, Panahou School. He studied here from his fifth grade and graduated in 1979. During his youth days, his nickname was Barry. In the same year after graduation, Obama moved to Los Angeles where he attended Occidental College. In 1981, he proceeded to Columbia College in New York City. Hemajored in political science and English literature. He graduated in 1983 and got employed at Business International Corporation and later New York Public Interest Research group.
In the year 1988, Obama joined Harvard Law School and lived in Somerville. During 1989 summer, he worked at the law firms of Sidley Austin as an associate, and in summer of 1990, in Hopkins & Sutter. He returned to Chicago in 1991 after graduating from Harvard. The following year, he was positioned as a Visiting Law and Government Fellow to work on his first book at the University of Chicago. During this time, he started teaching constitutional law at the same university as a lecturer. He joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland law firm as an associate. Moreover, he was promoted to a Senior Lecturer position in 1996 and continued teaching up to 2004. Obama also served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago from 1994 to 2002 and Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002.
Actions that Influenced Decisions Later in Life
Many actions are considered as the catalyst towards the decisions that Obama made later in life and lead to his ultimate success. His childhood was filled with struggles resulting from his multiracial heritage. His father was from Kenya while the mother was from Wichita, and he also spent time in Indonesia with his stepfather. This led him to experience a variety of cultures. Following the mutual respect he observed in the cultures, and the need to reconcile social perceptions created within him a foundation of value which inspired him to make the decision on becoming a leader who would unite all the races in America.
His early life as a leader also influenced his decisions to become the President. He was the president of the Harvard Law review. Also, acting as a community organizer in Chicago, he led people to the protests of the adverse conditions of New York City Subway System. It shaped him into becoming a leader and was later elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996. Before graduating in Law, he participated as a community organizer in Chicago. He was reelected to the Senate in 1998 and again in 2002. In 2003, he became the chair of the health Services Committee in Illinois and later elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. It called for the reissuing of his memoir, and this made him become successful. The speech delivered at Democratic National Convention which was well received and seen by over nine million viewers can be described by many as the turning point. These leadership steps and recognition influenced his decisions to vie for the American presidency.
Contributions to History
Obama has made many contributions to history since his early days in university. He was elected as the President Harvard Law review, becoming the first black to hold that position. The presidency attracted the attention of national media and landed him a publishing contract on race relations. He also became the first black president in America. In 2008, Obama refused to accept the public financing as the major-party presidential candidate. He became the first person to do so ever since the system was created. Additionally, Obama is the first U.S. president born in Hawaii.
Obama participated and promoted discussions which led to The Paris Agreement in 2015. The agreement was negotiated by 195 countries and after that adopted in 2015. As asserted by Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, the plan was a historic turning point towards the reduction of global warming. Obama also participated in the African Union which was held in Ethiopia by giving a speech encouraging trade, education, economy, and infrastructure. He became the first Sitting President of the U.S. to address African Union. From the start of the 20th century, only five individuals have ever been invited to address both houses of the UK Parliament. In 2011, Obama became one of them, and also the first U.S. President to ever receive this invitation.
Furthermore, Obama has been the first American president to visit various countries. In 2015, he became the first U.S. president to visit Kenya. He is the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima, Japan, where he paid tribute to the victims of America’s atomic bombing. In 2016, he became the first sitting president since 1928 to visit Havana, Cuba. He also led to the resuming of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba in 2015.
In 2008, Obama won the majority of the popular vote, and the same happened again in 2012. By winning twice, it made Obama become the first Democratic president to do so since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Obama’s concession speech “Yes, we Can’ became so famous that independent artists set it to music, with the video hitting 10 million views in its first month. He has also won the Best Spoken Word Album Grammy Award twice making him among the best speechmakers.
Other Achievements and Current Legacy
Besides contributions to history, Obama has many accomplishments credited to him. When directing the Illinois’s project vote, he led to registration of 150, 000 African Americans which made the Crain’s Chicago Business to include him in their list of “40 under Forty” power to be. Obama was chosen as the Person of the Year twice, in 2008 and 2012, by the Time magazine for his historic election. In 2009, nine months after his inauguration, the Norwegian Nobel Committee named Obama as the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. He was awarded due to his efforts in strengthening cooperation and international diplomacy and became the fourth U.S. president to receive the prize. [2]
Osama bin Laden was the leader of Al-Qaida, a terrorist group mainly targeting and attacking the United States. Following intelligence collected by CIA, Obama authorized a “surgical raid” to be done by the U.S. Navy SEALs. The operation was successful leading to the death of Osama Bin Laden and seizure of important computer drives and papers. His announcement on the successful mission resulted in spontaneous celebrations and positive reaction from many countries all over the world. The achievement was also recognized by the former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
The legacy of Obama had heightened with his political success and reached an optimum during his presidency. As the president of the United States, he has brought many changes that have shaped his current legacy. Obama has led to extensive background checks for gun sellers to enhance the gun control following recent shootings in public places. Obama has also created reforms in the health care system such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He has also improved the climate change policy through regulations that will facilitate limiting greenhouse gas emissions in factories and power plants to help curb global warming.
Major works of Obama
As the first and the only ever African-American elected President of the United States, Obama became a key figure in American history even before his inaugural ceremony. However, after winning a second term in 2012, his success in office made him one of the most transformative heads of state of the past 100 years. He assumed office with a country in hazard and led it through the Great Recession, two wars, civil unrest, a rash of mass shootings, and changing cultural demographics[3]. In the 2008 campaign, he called for change and eight years later, the citizen of the United States were living in a more prosperous country because of it. In 2009, Obama signed up the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the purpose of promoting the economic development in the midst of the great global recession. After a few months, there was an upsurge in the number of employment opportunities being generated and the rate of unemployment began to decrease. Within a year, approximately 3.7 million new Non-governmental jobs were created. Within the same year, he issued orders to all federal organizations to reduce their environmental impacts by 2020. As a result, there was a thirty percent decrease in fleet gasoline utilization, and twenty-six percent increase in water efficiency. These were some of the goals intended to attain lower environmental impacts over the next few years. With this Obama managed to double renewable power generation during his first term[4].
President Obama’s key emphasis was on revitalizing the economic status of then United States after the recession. He then signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) for the purpose of re-regulating the financial sector after its fall during the recession.
He approved the Operation Neptune Spear, to continue with the raid on Osama bin Laden’s place of operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. The result of the operation was the death of the notorious terrorist who had earlier succeeded in evading the U.S police force. He was also well known for his point of view on the same-sex marriages and LGBT rights. He called for full equality for gays during his 2nd opening speech on January 2013. This was the 1st time that a head of state talked about gay rights his speech.
First two years in office
During his first two years in office, Obama and his Democratic associates in Parliament compiled a considerable record of policy achievements. The economic spur, that restored the financial system, rescued two automakers, Universal health care, swept the reform of financial regulation as well as great changes in scholars’ loan programs among others. All the same, the political status of both the president and his Democratic associates slipped little by little through much of this period, and the voters registered a considerable reproach in the November 2010 midterm elections. Whilst some challenges remained unsettled, the Democrats lost at least six Senate positions, about 10 governorships, and over 60 House positions, the most for a mid-term election ever recorded in history. By any measure, this was a considerable and significant expression of public dissatisfaction[5].
What went wrong? There were four good justifying facts. The rare extent and nature of issues that Obama inherited when he took over office. Since the economic depressions then, that was brought about by financial catastrophes differed greatly from any other ordinary recurring recessions, recapture was slower and took longer in generating sustained high unemployment. In addition, because such crises destroyed so much wealth, the government had to take expensive steps to prevent all-out disaster, increasing shortfalls and debt in ways that the average citizens were bound to find worrying and hard to comprehend. The well-documented achievements of the financial steadying and stimulus enterprises were imperceptible to a public responding to the current situation then, and not to the counterfactual of how bad it was. The excruciatingly slow recapture from the worldwide financial catastrophe and Excessive Depression led most Americans to believe that those initiatives had failed and accordingly they judged the president and Congress bitterly[6].
In brief, advocates of this view opposed that, Obama and his associates were mainly the victims of forces beyond their reach. Even though they did everything in their capacity to revive the train of growth, the economic clock was moving very gradually than the political clock, causing extensive dissatisfaction and a great voter backlash. A greater part of Obama’s plea to independents and moderates was his assurance to minimize the level of prejudice in Washington. Unluckily for him, he could not bring about bipartisanship on his own, and the Republicans’ judgement to go against his every initiative, beginning from the first day, made it difficult for him to redeem his pledge. The Republicans betted that since Obama and his associates had control over the whole government, they were to be held responsible for continuing biasness. The Republicans then turned out to be right. Though it was not Obama’s mistake, the public focused their dissatisfaction and continuing biasness on him and the Democratic leadership, not on the key root of their dissatisfaction[7].
Economic Achievements
Greatest job increase in manufacturing since the ’90s”: During his reign, Obama managed to control the greatest emission of manufacturing job growth since the 1990s, but how extraordinary was that, really? The 6 years period between 2010 and 2016 experienced the greatest continuous rise in manufacturing employments since 1998.
Health Care Reform: After five heads of state over a century were unable to establish global health insurance, he, signed the Affordable Care Act (2010). It was to cover 32 million uninsured Americans since 2014 and mandated a suite of experimental procedures to reduce health care cost, which for years had been the key cause of America’s long-term fiscal problems.
The Stimulus: Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 for the purpose of off shooting economic growth amidst the major recession since the Great Depression. Weeks after stimulus started working, joblessness claims began to diminish. A year later, the non-governmental sector started to produce more employments than it was losing, and it continued to do so for months, generating about 3.7 million jobs within the non-governmental sector[8].
Wall Street Reform: He Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) for the purpose of re-regulating the finance sector after its practices lead to the Great Downturn. The new law tautened capital requisites on big banks as well as other financial institutes. It necessitated that derivatives be vended on clearinghouses and exchanges, required that big banks offer “living wills” for the purpose of avoiding disordered insolvencies, limited their capability of trading with clients’ money for their own gain as well as established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for the purpose of cracking down on abusive lending products and companies.
Turned Around U.S. Auto Industry: In the year 2009, Obama injected $62 billion in federal money into ailing GM and Chrysler with the aim of attaining equity stakes and agreements for massive restructuring. Since 2009, the auto industry created over 100,000 jobs. In 2011, the Big Three automakers all attained market share for the first time in two years. The government expected to lose $16 billion of its asset, if the price of the GM stock increased
Awards & Achievements
Obama was the recipient of two Best Spoken Word Album Grammy Awards. He won the honors for the edited audiobook versions of ‘Dreams from My Father’ (2006) as well as for ‘The Audacity of Hope’ (2008). In 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize was granted to Barack Obama “for his amazing hard work in strengthening international negotiation and collaboration between people. The ‘Time’ magazine named Obama as its Person of the Year two times, in 2008 and in 2012[9].
Conclusion
Obama has been a great leader who has been considered the ‘world’s most influential individual. Since his early ages, he portrayed the characteristics of a motivated leader. During his time in office as senator and president, he has brought many reforms. His achievements and significant contributions to history have been of great extent and surpassing many powerful people. As he prepares to retire from the presidency, his legacy will continue residing in people’s minds. Many as a source of inspirations have read his books, as it has been the case with his speeches. The struggles he has gone through during the phases of his achievement have rendered as a strong individual who will be celebrated for long all over the world.
Bibliography
Dougherty, Steve. Hopes and dreams: The story of Barack Obama. Black Dog & Leventhal Pub, 2009.
Galston, William Arthur. President Barack Obama’s First Two Years: Policy Accomplishments, Political Difficulties. Governance Studies at Brookings, 2010.
Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Desmond S. King. “Varieties of Obamaism: Structure, agency, and the Obama presidency.” Perspectives on Politics 8, no. 03 (2010): 793-802.
Marx, David M., Sei Jin Ko, and Ray A. Friedman. “The “Obama effect”: How a salient role model reduces race-based performance differences.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45, no. 4 (2009): 953-956.
Schier, Steven E. Transforming America: Barack Obama in the White House. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011.
Joann F Price, Barack Obama: A Biography. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2008), 4.
[2] Joann F Price, Barack Obama: A Biography. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2008), 86.
[3] Galston, William Arthur. President Barack Obama’s First Two Years: Policy Accomplishments, Political Difficulties. Governance Studies at Brookings, 2010.
[4] Schier, Steven E. Transforming America: Barack Obama in the White House. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011.
[5] Schier, Steven E. Transforming America: Barack Obama in the White House. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011.
[6] Marx, David M., Sei Jin Ko, and Ray A. Friedman. “The “Obama effect”: How a salient role model reduces race-based performance differences.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45, no. 4 (2009): 953-956.
[7] Dougherty, Steve. Hopes and dreams: The story of Barack Obama. Black Dog & Leventhal Pub, 2009.
[8] Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Desmond S. King. “Varieties of Obamaism: Structure, agency, and the Obama presidency.” Perspectives on Politics 8, no. 03 (2010): 793-802.
[9] Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Desmond S. King. “Varieties of Obamaism: Structure, agency, and the Obama presidency.” Perspectives on Politics 8, no. 03 (2010): 793-802.