| Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama |
In July 2004, Barack Obama burst onto the national scene with a riveting keynote address at the Democratic Convention. This bright, articulate, Harvard-educated politician who describes himself as the "man with the funny name" entered the national spotlight. Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is his story in his own words.
He captivated Americans because of his humble roots and because he is biracial. His mother, a white woman from Kansas, and his father, the son of a Kenyan goat herder, met in college when his father was a foreign exchange student. When Barack was a small child, his father returned to Kenya. Barack was largely raised by his mother and her parents, living most of his childhood in Hawaii. He was strongly influenced by his maternal grandparents, whom he affectionately called Toot and Gramps. His mother remarried for a time, which took him to Indonesia. These were happy years filled with adventures and playmates, yet he was affected by Indonesia's poverty and the vagaries of its political system. After his father returned to Kenya, he returned only once, when Barack was ten, for a month-long visit. As a teenager, Barack began to grapple with question of race and of identity. He started to wonder, "Where did I belong?" (p. 115). As an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York City, Barack "…began to grasp the almost mathematical precision with which America's race and class problem joined…" (p. 120). After college and a brief stint working for a financial consulting firm, he pursued his original goal of being a community organizer. He moved to Chicago to work in poor neighborhoods, helping church groups begin job-training programs and working to improve access to city services. Eventually he decided that a law degree would enable him to be more effective at implementing change. He entered Harvard, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude. He practiced as a civil rights lawyer before entering politics. As a young adult, questions about his roots gnawed at him. In his late 20s he connected with one of his Kenyan half-siblings and traveled to Kenya. He ends his autobiography with a detailed description of his visit to Kenya and his meeting with many members of his father's family. After serving in the Illinois State Senate, Barack Obama was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois in 2004. His essay "What I See in Lincoln's Eyes" appears in the June 27, 2005 issue of Time Magazine: http://obama.senate.gov/news/050627-what_i_see_in_lincolns_eyes/index.html Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama is shelved on the basement level of the Library at call number E185.97 .O23 A3 2004. Sharon Green, Reading Coordinator in the Office of Academic Support, wrote this Monthly Book Spotlight.
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