Barack Obama, Sr.
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| Barack Obama, Sr. | |
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| Born | 1936 Kanyadhiang village, Rachuonyo District, Kenya[1] |
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| Died | 24 November 1982 (aged 46) Nairobi, Kenya[2] |
| Resting place | Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya, Kenya[3] |
| Nationality | Kenyan |
| Alma mater | University of Hawaii Harvard University |
| Occupation | Economist |
| Known for | Father of US President Barack Obama |
| Religious beliefs | Islam, later Atheist[4] |
| Partner | Kezia Obama Ann Dunham Ruth Nidesand Jael Otieno[5][6][7] |
| Children | 1. (with Kezia): Abongo (Roy) Obama, Auma Obama, Abo Obama, Bernard Obama 2. (with Ann Dunham): Barack Obama II 3. (with Ruth Nidesand): Mark Ndesandjo,[8] David Ndesandjo 4. (with Jael): George Obama |
| Parents | Hussein Onyango Obama and Akumu Habiba |
Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (1936 − 24 November 1982) was a Kenyan senior governmental economist, and father of the President of the United States, Barack Obama. He is a central subject in his son's memoir, Dreams from My Father.
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[edit] Biography
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[edit] Early years
Barack Obama Sr. was born in Kanyadhiang village, Rachuonyo District[1] on the shores of Lake Victoria just outside Kendu Bay, Kenya, at the time a colony of the British Empire, and raised in the village of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Nyanza Province.[9] His family are members of the Luo ethnic group. He was the son of Onyango Obama (c. 1895-1979) who had at least three wives; Barack Obama Sr. was the son of Habiba Akumu Nyanjango of Karabondi, Kenya, the second wife. However, he was raised by Onyango's third wife, Sarah Ogwel of Kogelo, after Akumu left her family and separated from her husband in 1945.[3][10] Before working as a cook for missionaries in Nairobi, Onyango had travelled widely, enlisting in the British colonial forces and visiting Europe, India, and Zanzibar, where he converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam and took the name Hussein Onyango Obama. Hussein Onyango was jailed by the British for two years in 1949 due to his involvement in the Kenyan independence movement. According to Sarah Onyango Obama, Onyango was subjected to brutal torture.[11] Although Obama Sr. was born into a Muslim family, he was an atheist before he came to the United States.[4] Obama Sr. was married in 1954 at the age of eighteen, in a tribal ceremony to Kezia, with whom he had four children.
[edit] Education and fatherhood
While still living near Kendu Bay, Obama Sr. went to Gendia Primary School and shifted to Ng’iya Intermediate School once his family relocated to Siaya District.[1] From 1950 to 1953, he studied at Maseno Mission School, an exclusive Christian boarding school in Maseno that is run by the Anglican Church of Kenya. (Dreams from my Father, 2004 edition, p. 418). The head teacher, B.L. Bowers, described Obama Sr. in his records as "very keen, steady, trustworthy and friendly. Concentrates, reliable and out-going."[12]
Obama Sr. received a scholarship in economics through a program organized by nationalist leader Tom Mboya. The program offered Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students. [13] President Obama said of his father's scholarship, "The Kennedys decided: 'We're going to do an airlift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is. This young man named Barack Obama [Sr.] got one of those tickets and came over to this country.'"[14] An article by Michael Dobbs in The Washington Post, however, states that the Kennedy family did not become associated with the educational airlift until 1960, a year after Obama Sr. was studying in the United States. Initial financial supporters of the program included Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Jackie Robinson, and Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, a literacy advocate who provided most of the financial support for Obama Sr.'s early years in the United States, according to the Tom Mboya archives at Stanford University.[13]
At the age of 23, Obama Sr. enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, leaving behind a pregnant Kezia and their infant son. He had turned away from Islam and become an atheist by the time he moved to the United States.[4] On 2 February 1961, Obama Sr. married fellow student Ann Dunham in Maui, Hawaii[15] though she would not find out that her new husband was already married until much later.[16] Obama Sr.'s and Dunham's son, Barack Obama II, was born on August 4, 1961. Dunham left school to care for the baby, while Obama Sr. completed his degree. He graduated from the University of Hawaii in June 1962 (and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa[17]), leaving shortly thereafter to travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he would begin graduate study at Harvard University in the fall.[16] Later that summer, Dunham and the year-old baby Barack stopped to visit her friends in Mercer Island, Washington, the Seattle suburb where she had grown up,[16][18][19] before joining Obama Sr. in Cambridge. However, mother and son soon returned to Seattle, where she enrolled at the University of Washington.[18][16] Dunham, missing her family, then moved back to Hawaii[18] and filed for divorce in Honolulu in January 1964. Obama Sr. did not contest, and the divorce was granted.[15] He visited his son only once, in 1971, when Barack was 10 years old.[16]
While at Harvard, Obama Sr. met an American-born teacher named Ruth Nidesand. She followed him to Kenya when he returned there after he received a master's degree (AM) in economics from Harvard in 1965.[20] Nidesand eventually became his third wife and had two children with him before they divorced.[21]
[edit] Return to Kenya
On his return to Kenya, Obama Sr. was hired by an oil company and then served as an economist in the Ministry of Transport, and later became senior economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Finance.[22]
In 1959 a monograph written by him was published by the Kenyan Department of Education, entitled Otieno jarieko. Kitabu mar ariyo. 2: Yore mabeyo mag puro puothe. (English: Otieno, the wise man. Book 2: Wise ways of farming.)[23]
In 1965 Obama Sr. wrote a paper titled "Problems Facing Our Socialism," published in the East Africa Journal, harshly criticizing the blueprint for national planning, "African Socialism and Its Applicability to Planning in Kenya", which had been produced by Tom Mboya's Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. The article was signed "Barak H. Obama." [24] As his son describes in his memoir, Obama Sr.'s conflict with President Kenyatta destroyed his career. (Dreams from my Father, pp. 214-216.)
Obama Sr.'s life then took a tailspin into drinking and poverty, from which he never recovered. His friend, Kenyan journalist Philip Ochieng, has described Obama Sr.'s difficult personality and drinking problems in the Kenya newspaper The Daily Nation.[13] Obama Sr. lost both legs in an automobile collision, and subsequently lost his job. He died in 1982, at the age of 46, in a car crash in Nairobi.[13]
Obama Sr. is buried in at the village of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya. His funeral was attended by ministers Robert Ouko, Oloo Aringo and other prominent political figures.[1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d The Standard, November 14, 2008: Obama’s dad and his many loves
- ^ Sanders, Edmund (2008-07-17). "Obama not quite his Kenyan father's son". Los Angeles Times: p. A1. Archived from the original on 2008-07-17. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-obamadad17-2008jul17,0,6341121,full.story. Retrieved on 2009-02-24.
- ^ a b Kimberly Powell (2008). "Ancestry of Barack Obama". About.com. http://genealogy.about.com/od/aframertrees/p/barack_obama.htm. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
- ^ a b c Obama, Barack. "My Spiritual Journey". TIME. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1546579,00.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-26. "My father was almost entirely absent from my childhood, having been divorced from my mother when I was 2 years old; in any event, although my father had been raised a Muslim, by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist, thinking religion to be so much superstition."
- ^ Scott Fornek; Greg Good, et al. (9 September 2007). The Obama Family Tree. The Chicago Sun Times.
- ^ Rob Crilly (22 August 2008). "Life is Good in My Nairobi Slum, Says Barack Obama's Younger Brother". The Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4583353.ece. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
- ^ Mike Pflanz (21 August 2008). "Barack Obama is My Inspiration, Says Lost Brother". The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2595688/Barack-Obama-is-my-inspiration-says-lost-brother.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
- ^ Michael Sheridan (27 July 2008). "Barack Obama’s Brother Pushes Chinese Imports on US". The Times Online. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4406813.ece. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
- ^ Ombuor, Joe (2008-11-04). "Obama’s father and the origin of Muslim name". The Standard. http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1143998542&cid=4. Retrieved on 2008-11-13.
- ^ Reitwiesner, William Addams. "Ancestry of Barack Obama". http://www.wargs.com/political/obama.html. Retrieved on 2008-11-21.
- ^ Ben Macintyre and Paul Orengoh (3 December 2008). "Beatings and abuse made Barack Obama’s grandfather loathe the British". The Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5276010.ece. Retrieved on 2009-03-07.
- ^ Oywa, John (2008-11-04). "Tracing Obama Snr’s steps as a student at Maseno School". The Standard. http://www.eastandard.net/obama/InsidePage.php?id=1143998493&cid=530&. Retrieved on 2008-11-08.
- ^ a b c d Michael Dobbs (30 March 2008). "Obama Overstated Kennedy's Role in Helping His Father". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/29/AR2008032902031.html?nav=hcmodule. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
- ^ Rice, Xan (6 June 2008). "'Barack's Voice was Just Like His Father's — I Thought He had Come Back from the Dead'". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/06/barackobama.uselections2008. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
- ^ a b Ripley, Amanda (2008-04-09). "The Story of Barack Obama's Mother". Time. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524,00.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-09.
- ^ a b c d e Maraniss, David (2008-08-22). "Though Obama Had to Leave to Find Himself, It Is Hawaii That Made His Rise Possible". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/23/AR2008082301620_pf.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-27.
- ^ "U.S. Presidents Share a Phi Beta Kappa Connection," Phi Beta Kappa Society Focus News (retrieved January 21, 2009).
- ^ a b c Martin, Jonathan. Obama's mother known here as "uncommon", Seattle Times (2008-04-08).
- ^ Montgomery, Rick. “Barack Obama’s mother more than just a Kansas girl”, The Lawrence Journal-World (2008-06-01).
- ^ Harvard University (1986). Harvard University 350th Anniversary Alumni Directory. vol. I (seventeenth ed.). Cambridge, MA: President and Fellows of Harvard College. p. p. 904. OCLC 17963336.
- ^ Ochieng, Philip (1 November 2004). "From Home Squared to the US Senate". The East African. http://www.nationmedia.com/EastAfrican/01112004/Features/PA2-11.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
- ^ Scott Fornek (9 September 2007). "Barack Obama Sr.: Wrestling with . . . a Ghost". The Chicago Sun Times. http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/familytree/545467,BSX-News-wotreev09.stng. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
- ^ Otieno jarieko. East African Literature Bureau, The Eagle Press, Nairobi, 1959.
- ^ Obama, Barak H. (July 1965). "Problems Facing Our Socialism" (.PDF). East Africa Journal: pp. 26–33. http://www.politico.com/static/PPM41_eastafrica.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
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