See also: Dreams from My Father

Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (born in Nyangoma-Kogelo, Bondo District, Nyanza Province, Kenya,^[8] of Luo ethnicity) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas).^[9] Throughout his early years, he was commonly known at home and school as "Barry".^[10] Obama's parents met while both were attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student.^[11] They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.^[12] His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya, where he died in an automobile accident in 1982.^[13] His mother married another foreign student, Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967.^[14] Obama attended local schools in Jakarta from ages 6 to 10, where classes were taught in Indonesian.^[15][16] He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade until his graduation in 1979.^[17] Obama's mother, Ann, died of ovarian cancer and uterine cancer a few months after the publication of his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father.^[18]

In the memoir, Obama describes his experiences growing up in his mother's American middle class family. His knowledge about his African father, who returned once for a brief visit in 1971, came mainly through family stories and photographs.^[13] Of his early childhood, Obama writes: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind."^[19] The book describes his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.^[20] He wrote that he used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind".^[21] Reflecting later on his formative years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."^[22]

After high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years.^[23] He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.^[24] Obama received his Bachelor of Arts in 1983, then worked at Business International Corporation and New York Public Interest Research Group before moving to Chicago to take a job as a community organizer.^[25] As Director of the Developing Communities Project, he worked with low-income residents in Chicago's Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development.^[26] He entered Harvard Law School in 1988.^[27] In 1990, The New York Times reported his election as the Harvard Law Review's "first black president in its 104-year history".^[28] He completed his J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1991.^[29] On returning to Chicago, Obama directed a voter registration drive.^[29] As an associate attorney with Miner, Barnhill & Galland from 1993 to 1996, he represented community organizers, discrimination claims, and voting rights cases.^[30] He was a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.^[31]

^{Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama}