Barack Hussein Obama Sr. was a Kenyan senior governmental economist and the father of U.S. President Barack Obama. He is a central figure of his son's memoir, Dreams from My Father (1995). He worked with the Kenyan Ministry of Transport, and later gained a promotion to senior economic analyst in the Ministry of Finance.
Background
Barack Obama was born on the18th of June, 1936 in Rachuonyo District on the shores of Lake Victoria just outside Kendu Bay, British Kenya, at the time a colony and protectorate of the British Empire. He was raised in the village of Nyang'oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Nyanza Province. His family are members of the Luo ethnic group.
His father was Onyango (later Hussein) Obama, and he married Habiba Akumu Nyanjango of Karabondi, Kenya, as his second wife. They had two daughters and a son together, Barack Obama (Sr). After Akumu separated from her husband Hussein and left the family in 1945, the three children were raised by his father's third wife, Sarah Ogwel of Kogelo.
As a young man, Barack Obama's father Onyango had traveled widely, enlisting in the British colonial forces and visiting Europe, India, and Zanzibar. There, Onyango converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam and took the name Hussein. He became a cook for missionaries and local herbalist in Nairobi.
Education
Barack Obama started his education at N’giya Primary/Intermediate School from where he proceeded to Maseno School. He later proceeded to Hawaii University, Honolulu from where he was awarded a scholarship to Harvard University where he obtained his Doctorate in Economics.
Having completed his education in the U.S.A. he returned to Kenya in 1964 where he ended up working with the Kenya Government as a Senior Economist in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. prior to working with the Government, he first worked as an economist for an oil company.
In 1970, Obama was in a serious automobile accident, and was hospitalized for nearly a year. In December 1971, he traveled to Hawai'i for a month. There he visited with his ex-wife Ann Dunham and American son Barack II. The visit was the last time the boy would see his father. During his trip, Obama took his son to his first jazz concert, a performance by the pianist Dave Brubeck.
Achievements
Works
publication
Problems Facing Our Socialism
(He harshly criticized the blueprint for national planning...)
1965
Religion
When Barack was about six years old and attending a Christian missionary school, the boy converted to Anglicanism when strongly encouraged by the staff. He changed his name from "Baraka" to "Barack". Obama later became an atheist, believing that religion was mere superstition.
Politics
His political views were very controversial. According to Barack II's memoir, Obama's continuing conflict with Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta destroyed his career.[71] He came under suspicion after Tom Mboya was assassinated in 1969, as Obama had been a protege of his. Kenyatta fired Obama, who was blacklisted in Kenya and found it impossible to get work. By the time Obama visited his son in Hawaii in 1971, he had a bad leg from the 1970 accident.
Views
Quotations:
"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100 per cent of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed."
Personality
He is described as a man full of laughter and fun to be with. Above all, he was a polygamist who married three wives in his lifetime.
Physical Characteristics:
He is Black, and had a deep voice.
Quotes from others about the person
Barack Obama Jr.: "I only remember my father for one month my whole life, when I was 10. And it wasn't until much later in life that I realized, like, he gave me my first basketball and it was shortly thereafter that I became this basketball fanatic. And he took me to my first jazz concert and it was sort of shortly thereafter that I became really interested in jazz and music. So what it makes you realize how much of an impact [even if it's only a month] that they have on you. But I think probably the most important thing was his absence I think contributed to me really wanting to be a good dad, you know? Because I think not having him there made me say to myself 'you know what I want to make sure my girls feel like they've got somebody they can rely on."
Ochieng: "He was a menace to life. He had many extremely serious accidents. Both his legs had to be amputated. They were replaced with crude false limbs made from iron."
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident.