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For his son, the United States Senator and Presidential candidate, see Barack Obama.

Barack Obama
File:Barack Obama Sr Jr.jpg Obama, Sr. with son, Barack c. 1971
Born	1936 Nyang’oma Kogelo, Kenya
Died	1982 (aged 46) Nairobi, Kenya
Resting place	Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya, Kenya
Nationality	Kenya
Alma mater	University of Hawaii Harvard University
Occupation	Economist
Known for	Father of Barack Obama
Partner(s)	Kezia Obama Ann Dunham Ruth Nidesand Jael
Children	1. (with Kezia): Abongo (Roy) Obama, Auma Obama, Abo Obama, Bernard Obama 2. (with Ann Dunham): Barack Obama 3. (with Ruth Nidesand): Mark Ndesandjo, David Ndesandjo 4. (with Jael): George Obama
Parent(s)	Hussein Onyango Obama and Akumu Habiba

Barack Hussein Obama (1936–1982) was a Kenyan senior governmental economist, and father of Illinois Senator and 2008 Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Biography

Early years

Obama was born on the shores of Lake Victoria in Nyang’oma Kogelo, Alego, Siaya, Kenya to Hussein Onyango Obama (c.1895-1979), and Akumu Habiba. His family are members of the Luo tribe. Obama grew up in Nyang’oma Kogelo, and was married at 18 in a tribal ceremony to Kezia. They had four children, two of them after he returned to Kenya from the United States. The marriage was never legally disolved, and she now lives in Bracknell, England.

Education

Due to a program offering Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students that was organized by nationalist leader Tom Mboya, Obama was awarded a scholarship in economics, and at the age of 23 he enrolled at the University of Hawaii. He left behind a pregnant Kezia and their infant son. As his son Senator Obama has said, "The Kennedys decided: 'We're going to do an airlift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is. This young man named Barack Obama [Sr.] got one of those tickets and came over to this country.'" An article by Michael Dobbs in The Washington Post, however, states that the Kennedy family did not become associated with the educational airlift until 1960, a year after Obama was studying in the United States. Initial financial supporters of the program included Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Jackie Robinson, and Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, a literacy advocate who provided most of the financial support for Obama Senior's early years in the United States, according to the Tom Mboya archives at Stanford University.

Obama had already turned away from Islam and became an atheist by the time he moved to the United States. Barack Obama Sr.'s daughter Auma has commented that her father "was never a Muslim although he was born into a Muslim family with a Muslim name."

On 21 February 1961, Obama married a fellow student, Ann Dunham in Maui, Hawaii. Their son, Barack Obama, was born on August 4, 1961. Two years later, Obama was accepted at Harvard for graduate study. He moved to Massachusetts while Ann and their son remained in Hawaii. He and Dunham divorced in 1963. The divorce was filed in Honolulu, Hawaii in January 1964, and he only saw his son again once, at age 10. He received the AM degree from Harvard in 1965.

He left the family when young Barack was two years old, and they only saw each other one more time, eight years later, when the son was age 10. He is the main subject of his son's memoir, Dreams From My Father. At Harvard, he met an American-born teacher named Ruth Nidesand who would follow him to Kenya when he returned after completing his Masters degree. She eventually became his third wife and had two children with him before they divorced.

Return to Kenya

On his return to Kenya, Obama was hired by an oil company and then served as an economist in the Ministry of Transportation, and later became senior economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Finance. In 1965 Obama wrote a paper titled "Problems Facing Our Socialism," published in the East Africa Journal, harshly criticizing the blueprint for national planning titled "African Socialism and Its Applicability to Planning in Kenya" produced by Tom Mboya's Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. As Senator Barack Obama describes in his memoir, Obama the elder's conflict with President Kenyatta effectively destroyed his career.

Obama's life then took a tailspin into drinking and poverty, from which he never fully recovered. His friend, Kenyan journalist Philip Ochieng, has described Obama's difficult personality and drinking problems in the Kenya newspaper The Nation. Obama lost both legs in an automobile accident, and subsequently lost his job. He died not long afterward at the age of 46 in a car crash in Nairobi.

Obama is buried in Alego, at the village of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya.

See also

• Family of Barack Obama

References

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