Barack Obama Blog Biography

August 1988: Barack Obama recently left his community organizer job in Chicago, Illinois, for a chance to attend Harvard Law School in Boston, Massachusetts. The opportunity is a big one for young Obama - with successful graduation from Harvard Law, one gains entry into a multitude of career and life paths including law and politics (and many times, both). Attending Harvard also adds to the eclectic list of places Obama has called home for significant lengths of time: Hawaii, Indonesia, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and now Boston. It remains unforeseen if the nomadic nature of Obama’s developmental years will ultimately benefit his perspective on American and global culture, or be a detriment to his understanding of having solid “roots” in one place.

July 1983: After spending well over a year at a financial services job in Manhattan, Barack Obama has finally decided that his immediate future would be better served as a community organizer. Always a believer in helping people and the common man, Obama believes his talents are better suited to efforts such as housing and voter registration.

Finding nothing but dead ends in New York (a first attempt in becoming an organizer led to a quick introduction to living at the poverty line), Obama has packed his few things in a car and driven to Chicago, Illinois at the bequest of Gerald Kaufman of the Calumet Community Religious Conference. Less a league of churches for religious advancement and more a loose federation of peoples looking for help with unemployment, home forclosure and other community ailments, the churches of the CCRC and Developing Communities Project (DCP) represent the most common and natural rallying grounds for black people and so provide an existing organizational structure for those in need and those trying to help.

Obama will surely find solace in a city with a recently elected black mayor, a man who stands as an immense source of pride for so many in the Chicago area, and a frustration for so many others. Chicago is, in 1983, desperately in need of individuals and organizations who are willing to give up the lucrative lifestyle of the corporate world for days spent petitioning for voter rights, homes and pensions.

August 1981: In what’s sure to be an important step for the maturation and development of his academic and political knowledge, Barack Obama has transferred from Occidental College - a small, academically rigorous liberal arts college in Los Angeles - to prestigious Columbia University in New York City. The change of coasts marks the fourth big relocation of young Obama’s life - born in Hawaii, he has also lived in Indonesia, Hawaii again and then Los Angeles. A diverse list, to be sure.

Obama’s first evening in New York has already been a humbling awakening. With just one contact in the “Big Apple”, hopeful phone calls and door bells for a promised roof and bed fall on silent ears and Obama was forced to curl up on his battered luggage for a long night in the alley on the Upper West side of Manhattan.

Over the months Obama will live in more than a few apartments, learning quickly the “intracacies” of New York’s real estate market. Rentals will, undoubtedly, fall through and new doors will open, but Obama’s focus will only become sharper as he concentrates on keeping in basketball shape and most importantly, graduating with a degree from Columbia.

During his time in New York, Obama’s mother and sister, Maya, plan to visit. With both children having grown up considerably since the last time they were all together, Obama’s mother will share more stories about Obama’s father and their once-promising love story.