Barack Obama Sr.

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

Barack Obama
File:Barack Obama Sr Jr.jpg Barack Obama with his son, Barack Obama II, during a visit to Hawai'i
Born	1936 Nyang’oma Kogelo, Kenya
Died	1982 Nairobi, Kenya
Resting place	Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya
Nationality	Kenyan
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 Habiba Akumu

Barack Hussein Obama (1936–1982) was the father of Illinois Senator and 2008 Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. 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. Born and raised in Kenya, the elder Obama was educated in the United States, after which he returned to Kenya and served as a senior economist for the government. He died at age 46, from injuries received in an automobile accident.

Family background and early life in Kenya

Barack Obama was born in 1936 on the shores of Lake Victoria in Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya. His father, Onyango Obama (c. 1895-1979, buried at Alego), belonged to the Luo tribe and was born Onyango, son of Obama (buried at Kendu Bay, Kenya) and wife Nyaoke, in one of their villages. Before working as a cook for missionaries in Nairobi, Onyango had travelled widely, enlisting with the name Onyango Obama in the British colonial forces during World War I and visiting Europe, India, and Zanzibar, where he converted from Christianity to Islam.

Obama grew up in Nyang’oma Kogelo. At 18, he married a young woman named Kezia in a tribal ceremony. They had four children, two of them after he returned to Kenya from the United States. He never divorced Kezia, who now lives in Bracknell, England.

American education and marriages

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.

According to Senator Obama, the elder Obama had already abandoned Islam and become 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 February 2, 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.

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 afterwards at the age of 46 in a car crash in Nairobi.

He 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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