Barack Obama Sr.: Difference between revisions
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'''Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.''' ([[1936]]–[[1982]]) was the [[father]] of [[Illinois]] [[United States Senator|Senator]] and presidential candidate [[Barack Obama]]. He left the family when Barack was two years old, and only saw him one more time when Barack was age 10. He is the main subject of his son's memoir, ''[[Dreams From My Father]]''. Born and raised in [[Kenya]], Obama Sr. was educated in the United States, after which he returned to Kenya and served as a senior [[economist]] for the government.<ref name="Ghost">{{cite news | url=http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/familytree/545467,BSX-News-wotreev09.stng |title=BARACK OBAMA SR.: Wrestling with . . . a ghost | author=Scott Fornek | publisher=''Chicago Sun Times'' | date=2007-09-09 | accessdate=2008-03-24}}</ref> Obama died in poverty at age 46, from injuries received in an automobile accident.<ref name="Overstate">{{cite news | url= |
'''Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.''' ([[1936]]–[[1982]]) was the [[father]] of [[Illinois]] [[United States Senator|Senator]] and presidential candidate [[Barack Obama]]. He left the family when Barack was two years old, and only saw him one more time when Barack was age 10. He is the main subject of his son's memoir, ''[[Dreams From My Father]]''. Born and raised in [[Kenya]], Obama Sr. was educated in the United States, after which he returned to Kenya and served as a senior [[economist]] for the government.<ref name="Ghost">{{cite news | url=http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/familytree/545467,BSX-News-wotreev09.stng |title=BARACK OBAMA SR.: Wrestling with . . . a ghost | author=Scott Fornek | publisher=''Chicago Sun Times'' | date=2007-09-09 | accessdate=2008-03-24}}</ref> Obama died in poverty at age 46, from injuries received in an automobile accident.<ref name="Overstate">{{cite news | url=hhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/29/AR2008032902031.html?nav=hcmodule |title=Obama Overstated Kennedy's Role in Helping His Father | author=Michael Dobbs | publisher=''The Washington Post'' | date=2008-03-30 | accessdate=2008-03-30}}</ref> |
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==Family background and early life in Kenya == |
==Family background and early life in Kenya == |
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==American education and marriages, return to Kenya== |
==American education and marriages, return to Kenya== |
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Due to a program offering Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students that was organized by nationalist leader [[Tom Mboya]],<ref name="Overstate" />Obama Sr. was awarded a scholarship in economics, and at the age of 23 he enrolled at the [[University of Hawaii]]. He left behind a pregnant Kezia and their infant son. As his son Senator Obama has said, "The [[John F. Kennedy|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."<ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/10/usa.uselections2008 The other Obama-Kennedy connection], Thursday January 10 2008 </ref> 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 already 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]]. <ref name="Overstate" /> |
Due to a program offering Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students that was organized by nationalist leader [[Tom Mboya]],<ref name="Overstate">{{cite news | url=hhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/29/AR2008032902031.html?nav=hcmodule |title=Obama Overstated Kennedy's Role in Helping His Father | author=Michael Dobbs | publisher=''The Washington Post'' | date=2008-03-30 | accessdate=2008-03-30}}</ref> Obama Sr. was awarded a scholarship in economics, and at the age of 23 he enrolled at the [[University of Hawaii]]. He left behind a pregnant Kezia and their infant son. As his son Senator Obama has said, "The [[John F. Kennedy|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."<ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/10/usa.uselections2008 The other Obama-Kennedy connection], Thursday January 10 2008 </ref> 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 already 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]]. <ref name="Overstate">{{cite news | url=hhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/29/AR2008032902031.html?nav=hcmodule |title=Obama Overstated Kennedy's Role in Helping His Father | author=Michael Dobbs | publisher=''The Washington Post'' | date=2008-03-30 | accessdate=2008-03-30}}</ref> |
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According to Senator Obama, the elder Obama had already abandoned Islam and become an [[atheist]] by the time he moved to the United States.<ref>{{cite news | author=Barack Obama | coauthors= | title=My Spiritual Journey | date=[[October 23]] [[2006]] | publisher= | url =http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1546579,00.html | work =TIME | pages = | accessdate = 2007-02-18 | language = }}</ref> |
According to Senator Obama, the elder Obama had already abandoned Islam and become an [[atheist]] by the time he moved to the United States.<ref>{{cite news | author=Barack Obama | coauthors= | title=My Spiritual Journey | date=[[October 23]] [[2006]] | publisher= | url =http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1546579,00.html | work =TIME | pages = | accessdate = 2007-02-18 | language = }}</ref> |
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On [[February 2]], [[1961]], Obama Sr. married a fellow student, [[Ann Dunham]] in [[Maui]], [[Hawaii]].<ref>{{cite news |author=Amanda Ripley |title=The Story of Barack Obama's Mother | url=http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524,00.html| |date=[[2008-04-09]] |work=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |accessdate=2007-04-09 }}</ref> She did not know that he already had a wife in Kenya.<ref name="Churcher"/> Their son, Barack Obama, Jr., was born on August 4, 1961. Two years later, Obama Sr. was accepted at [[Harvard]] for graduate study. He moved to [[Massachusetts]], unable to afford to take his wife and son with him. He and Dunham divorced in 1963, and he only saw his son again once, at age 10. |
On [[February 2]], [[1961]], Obama Sr. married a fellow student, [[Ann Dunham]] in [[Maui]], [[Hawaii]].<ref>{{cite news |author=Amanda Ripley |title=The Story of Barack Obama's Mother | url=http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524,00.html| |date=[[2008-04-09]] |work=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |accessdate=2007-04-09 }}</ref> She did not know that he already had a wife in Kenya.<ref name="Churcher"/> Their son, Barack Obama, Jr., was born on August 4, 1961. Two years later, Obama Sr. was accepted at [[Harvard]] for graduate study. He moved to [[Massachusetts]], unable to afford to take his wife and son with him. He and Dunham divorced in 1963, and he only saw his son again once, at age 10. |
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At Harvard, he met an American-born teacher named Ruth Nidesand who would follow him to Kenya when he returned after completing a graduate degree. She eventually became his third wife. She and Obama Sr. had two children together before they divorced.<ref name="Ochieng">{{cite news | url=http://www.nationmedia.com/EastAfrican/01112004/Features/PA2-11.html | title=From Home Squared to the US Senate: How Barack Obama Was Lost and Found | author=Philip Ochieng | |
At Harvard, he met an American-born teacher named Ruth Nidesand who would follow him to Kenya when he returned after completing a graduate degree. She eventually became his third wife. She and Obama Sr. had two children together before they divorced.<ref name="Ochieng">{{cite news | url=http://www.nationmedia.com/EastAfrican/01112004/Features/PA2-11.html | title=From Home Squared to the US Senate: How Barack Obama Was Lost and Found | author=Philip Ochieng | work=The East African | date=2004-11-01 | accessdate=2008-03-23}}</ref> |
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On his return to Kenya, Obama Sr. was hired by an oil company and then served as an economist in the Ministry of Transportation. In 1965 [http://gregransom.com/prestopundit/2008/04/gregs-guide-to-barack-obamas-d.html Obama wrote an important paper] titled "Problems Facing Our Socialism" published in the East Africa Journal harshly criticizing the blue print for national planning titled "African Socialism and Its Applicability to Planning in Kenya" produced by Tom Mboya's Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. Obama's paper put him on the side of communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga against pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya and the President of Keyna [[Jomo Kenyatta]].<ref> See [http://gregransom.com/prestopundit/2008/04/gregs-guide-to-barack-obamas-d.html "Barack Obama Hid His Father's Socialist and Anti-Western Convictions From His Readers: The "Rosebud" of Barack Obama's Memoir] </ref>. As Sen. Barack Obama describes in his memoir, Obama the elder's conflict with the Kenyatta effective destroyed his career. His life then took a tailspin into drinking and poverty, from which he never really recovered. His friend Kenyan journalist Philip Ochieng has described Obama's difficult personality and drinking problems in the Kenya newspaper The Nation.<ref name="Overstate">{{cite news | url=hhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/29/AR2008032902031.html?nav=hcmodule |title=Obama Overstated Kennedy's Role in Helping His Father | author=Michael Dobbs | publisher=''The Washington Post'' | date=2008-03-30 | accessdate=2008-03-30}}</ref> Obama Sr. lost both legs in an automobile accident, and subsequently lost his job. He died not long afterwards at the age of 46 in another car crash. |
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On his return to Kenya, Obama Sr. was hired by an oil company. He later served as an economist in the government of [[Jomo Kenyatta]], but Obama Sr.'s potential was curtailed by a difficult personality and drinking problems.<ref name="Ochieng" /> Obama Sr. lost both legs in an automobile accident, and subsequently lost his job. He died not long afterwards at the age of 46 in another car crash. |
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He is buried in the village of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya. |
He is buried in the village of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya. |
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Revision as of 09:05, 11 April 2008
Barack Obama, Sr. | |
|---|---|
| File:Barack Obama Sr Jr.jpg Barack Obama, Sr. and Jr. during Senior's only visit with his son in Hawai'i | |
| Born | 1936 Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya |
| Died | 1982 Nairobi, Kenya |
| Resting place | Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya[1] |
| Nationality | Kenyan |
| Alma mater | University of Hawaii Harvard University |
| Occupation | Economist |
| Known for | Biological father of Barack Obama |
| Spouse(s) | Kezia Ann Dunham Ruth Nidesand Unknown 4th partner[2] |
| Children | 1. (with Kezia) Abongo (Roy) Obama, Auma Obama, Abo Obama, Bernard Obama 2. (with Ann Dunham) Barack Obama 3. (with Ruth Nidesand) Mark Obama, David Obama[2] |
| Parent(s) | Hussein Onyango Obama and Auma Obama [1] |
Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (1936–1982) was the father of Illinois Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama. He left the family when Barack was two years old, and only saw him one more time when Barack was age 10. He is the main subject of his son's memoir, Dreams From My Father. Born and raised in Kenya, Obama Sr. was educated in the United States, after which he returned to Kenya and served as a senior economist for the government.[3] Obama died in poverty at age 46, from injuries received in an automobile accident.[4]
Family background and early life in Kenya
Barack Obama, Sr., was born in 1936 in Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District (now in Bondo District), Kenya. His father, Hussain Onyango Obama (c. 1895-1979)[1], belonged to the Luo tribe. Before working as a cook for missionaries in Nairobi, Onyango had travelled widely, enlisting in the British colonial forces during World War I and visiting Europe, India, and Zanzibar, where he converted from Christianity to Islam and added Hussein to his name.[5] Onyango had several wives. Barack Obama Sr. was the son of Akuma, the second wife. However, he was raised by Onyango's third wife, Sarah, after Akuma left her family.[1]
Obama Sr. grew up in Nyangoma-Kogelo. At 18, he married a young woman named Kezia in a tribal ceremony. They had four children, two of them after he returned to Kenya from the United States. He never divorced Kezia, who now lives in Bracknell, England.[6]
American education and marriages, return to Kenya
Due to a program offering Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students that was organized by nationalist leader Tom Mboya,[4] Obama Sr. was awarded a scholarship in economics, and at the age of 23 he enrolled at the University of Hawaii. He left behind a pregnant Kezia and their infant son. As his son Senator Obama has said, "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."[7] 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 already 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. [4]
According to Senator Obama, the elder Obama had already abandoned Islam and become an atheist by the time he moved to the United States.[8]
On February 2, 1961, Obama Sr. married a fellow student, Ann Dunham in Maui, Hawaii.[9] She did not know that he already had a wife in Kenya.[5] Their son, Barack Obama, Jr., was born on August 4, 1961. Two years later, Obama Sr. was accepted at Harvard for graduate study. He moved to Massachusetts, unable to afford to take his wife and son with him. He and Dunham divorced in 1963, and he only saw his son again once, at age 10.
At Harvard, he met an American-born teacher named Ruth Nidesand who would follow him to Kenya when he returned after completing a graduate degree. She eventually became his third wife. She and Obama Sr. had two children together before they divorced.[10]
On his return to Kenya, Obama Sr. was hired by an oil company and then served as an economist in the Ministry of Transportation. In 1965 Obama wrote an important paper titled "Problems Facing Our Socialism" published in the East Africa Journal harshly criticizing the blue print for national planning titled "African Socialism and Its Applicability to Planning in Kenya" produced by Tom Mboya's Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. Obama's paper put him on the side of communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga against pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya and the President of Keyna Jomo Kenyatta.[11]. As Sen. Barack Obama describes in his memoir, Obama the elder's conflict with the Kenyatta effective destroyed his career. His life then took a tailspin into drinking and poverty, from which he never really recovered. His friend Kenyan journalist Philip Ochieng has described Obama's difficult personality and drinking problems in the Kenya newspaper The Nation.[4] Obama Sr. lost both legs in an automobile accident, and subsequently lost his job. He died not long afterwards at the age of 46 in another car crash.
He is buried in the village of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya.
Children
Besides Senator Obama, Barack Obama Sr. fathered six other sons and a daughter. All but one live in Britain or the United States.[1]
His children with Kezia include their sons Roy (now known as Abong'o[10]), Bernard, and Abo, and daughter Auma who is a social worker running a children's trust in the United Kingdom.[12] Obama Sr. had two sons with Ruth, named David and Mark. Mark studied physics at Stanford, and now lives in China and is engaged to a Chinese woman. [13] His eighth child was by a woman in Kenya whom he was planning to marry at the time of his death.[5]
References
- ^ a b c d e Ancestry of Barack Obama
- ^ a b "Chicago Sun Times Barack Family Tree" (PDF). Chicago Sun Times. Retrieved 2008-03-23.
- ^ Scott Fornek (2007-09-09). "BARACK OBAMA SR.: Wrestling with . . . a ghost". Chicago Sun Times. Retrieved 2008-03-24.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c d Michael Dobbs (2008-03-30). [hhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/29/AR2008032902031.html?nav=hcmodule "Obama Overstated Kennedy's Role in Helping His Father"]. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-03-30.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c Sharon Churcher (2007-01-27). "A drunk and a bigot - what the US Presidental hopeful HASN'T said about his father..." Daily Mail. Retrieved 2008-03-23.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Elizabeth Sanderson (2008-01-06). "Barack Obama's stepmother living in Bracknell reveals the close bond with him ... and his mother". Daily Mail. Retrieved 2008-03-24.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ The other Obama-Kennedy connection, Thursday January 10 2008
- ^ Barack Obama (October 23 2006). "My Spiritual Journey". TIME. Retrieved 2007-02-18.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Amanda Ripley (2008-04-09). "The Story of Barack Obama's Mother". Time. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - ^ a b Philip Ochieng (2004-11-01). "From Home Squared to the US Senate: How Barack Obama Was Lost and Found". The East African. Retrieved 2008-03-23.
- ^ See "Barack Obama Hid His Father's Socialist and Anti-Western Convictions From His Readers: The "Rosebud" of Barack Obama's Memoir
- ^ Scott Fornek (2007-09-09). "AUMA OBAMA:Her restlessness, her independence". Chicago Sun Times. Retrieved 2008-03-23.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Roger Cohen (2008-03-17). "Obama's Brother in China". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-03-23.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help)
