Born:
August 4, 1961
Honolulu, Hawaii
Education:
Columbia University, B.A. 1983 (Political Science)
Harvard University Law School, J.D. 1991
Political Career:
U.S. Senator from Illinois, January 2005 - present
Illinois State Senator, 1997 - 2004
Biography:
Senator Barack Obama is the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Senator Obama serves on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He served on the Environment and Public Works Committee in 2005 and 2006.
In 1985 Senator Obama moved to Chicago to work for a church-based group that sought to improve conditions in poor neighborhoods. He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. He moved back to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law.
Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
He and his wife Michelle live on Chicago's South Side with their two daughters.
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