Profile: Barack Obama

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Source: CCTV.com | 11-05-2008 14:18

47-year-old Illinois senator Barack Obama seems certain to become the first ever African-American US president. Many Americans are hoping he will be able to successfully steer the US out of the aftermath of the wars and the current economic crisis. As a world full of challenges await his emergence onto a global stage.

Young Obama was playing baseball.

Obama was born on August 14, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a Kenyan father and a white mother from the state of Kansas, in the US heartland.

He attended Harvard Law School and was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, he returned to Chicago where he practiced civil rights law and taught courses on the Constitution at the University of Chicago.

Obama attended Harvard Law School and was elected the first  black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Obama decided to make his first run for public office in 1996, winning a seat in the Illinois State Senate. Four years later, he sought a seat in the US House of Representatives, but without success.