Barack Obama, Sr.
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| Barack Obama, Sr. | |
 Barack Obama, Sr. and Jr. during Senior's
only visit with his son in Hawai'i |
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| Born | 1936 Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya |
|---|---|
| Died | 1982 Nairobi, Kenya |
| Burial place | Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya[1] |
| Nationality | Kenyan |
| Alma mater | University of Hawaii Harvard University |
| Occupation | Economist |
| Known for | Father of Barack Obama |
| Spouse | Kezia Ann Dunham Ruth Nidesand Unknown 4th partner[2] |
| Children | 1. (with Kezia): Abongo (Roy) Obama, Auma Obama, Abo Obama, Bernard Obama 2. (with Ann Dunham): Barack Obama 3. (with Ruth Nidesand): Mark Obama, David Obama[2] |
| Parents | Hussein Onyango Obama and Auma Obama [1] |
Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (1936–1982) was the father of Illinois Senator and 2008 Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama. He left the family when Barack Jr. was two years old, and only saw him one more time when Barack was age 10. He is the main subject of his son's memoir, Dreams From My Father. Born and raised in Kenya, Obama Sr. was educated in the United States, after which he returned to Kenya and served as a senior economist for the government.[3] Obama died at age 46, from injuries received in an automobile accident.[4]
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[edit] Family background and early life in Kenya
Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., was born in 1936 on the shores of Lake Victoria in Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District (now in Bondo District), Kenya. His father, Hussein Onyango Obama (c. 1895-1979, buried at Alego),[1] 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 and added Hussein to his name.[5][6] Onyango had at least three wives; Barack Obama Sr. was the son of Akuma/Akumu, the second wife. However, he was raised by Onyango's third wife, Sarah, after Akuma/Akumu left her family and separated from her husband in 1945.[1][6][7]
Obama Sr. grew up in Nyangoma-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.[8]
[edit] American education and marriages
Due to a program offering Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students that was organized by nationalist leader Tom Mboya,[4] Obama Sr. 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."[9] 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 Sr. was already 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 Sr.'s early years in the United States, according to the Tom Mboya archives at Stanford University.[4]
According to Senator Obama, the elder Obama had already abandoned Islam and become an atheist by the time he moved to the United States.[10]
On February 2, 1961, Obama Sr. married a fellow student, Ann Dunham in Maui, Hawaii.[11] She did not know that he already had a wife in Kenya.[5] Their son, Barack Obama, Jr., was born on August 4, 1961. Two years later, Obama Sr. was accepted at Harvard for graduate study. He moved to Massachusetts, unable to afford to take his wife and son with him. He and Dunham divorced in 1963, divorce 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.[12]
At Harvard, he met an American-born teacher named Ruth Nidesand who would follow him to Kenya when he returned after completing a graduate Ph. D. degree. She eventually became his third wife. She and Obama Sr. had two children together before they divorced.[13]
[edit] Return to Kenya
On his return to Kenya, Obama Sr. 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 an important 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.[citation needed] Obama's paper put him on the side of communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga against pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya and the President of Kenya Jomo Kenyatta.[citation needed] As Sen. Barack Obama describes in his memoir, Obama the elder's conflict with President Kenyatta effectively destroyed his career. His 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.[4] Obama Sr. lost both legs in an automobile accident, and subsequently lost his job. He died not long afterwards, in poverty, at the age of 46 in car crash in Nairobi.[4]
He is buried in Alego, at the village of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya.
[edit] Children
Besides United States Senator Barack Obama, Barack Obama Sr. fathered six other sons and a daughter. All but one live in Britain or the United States.[1]
His children with Kezia include their sons Roy (now known as Abong'o[13]), Bernard, and Abo, and daughter Auma who is a social worker running a children's trust in the United Kingdom.[14] Obama Sr. had two sons with Ruth, named David and Mark. Mark studied physics at Stanford, and now lives in China and is engaged to a Chinese woman.[15] His eighth child, George[16], was with a woman in Kenya whom he was planning to marry at the time of his death.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Ancestry of Barack Obama
- ^ a b Chicago Sun Times Barack Family Tree. Chicago Sun Times. Retrieved on 2008-03-23.
- ^ Scott Fornek. "BARACK OBAMA SR.: Wrestling with . . . a ghost", Chicago Sun Times, 2007-09-09. Retrieved on 2008-03-24.
- ^ a b c d e Michael Dobbs. "Obama Overstated Kennedy's Role in Helping His Father", The Washington Post, 2008-03-30. Retrieved on 2008-03-30.
- ^ a b c Sharon Churcher. "A drunk and a bigot - what the US Presidental hopeful HASN'T said about his father...", Daily Mail, 2007-01-27. Retrieved on 2008-03-23.
- ^ a b Xan Rice. "'Barack's voice was just like his father's - I thought he had come back from the dead' (Interview with Sarah Obama)", The Guardian, 2008-06-06. Retrieved on 2008-06-10.
- ^ http://www.wargs.com/political/obama.html
- ^ Elizabeth Sanderson. "Barack Obama's stepmother living in Bracknell reveals the close bond with him ... and his mother", Daily Mail, 2008-01-06. Retrieved on 2008-03-24.
- ^ The other Obama-Kennedy connection, Thursday January 10 2008
- ^ Barack Obama. "My Spiritual Journey", TIME, October 23, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-02-18.
- ^ Amanda Ripley. "The Story of Barack Obama's Mother", Time, 2008-04-09. Retrieved on 2007-04-09.
- ^ "Harvard University 350th Anniversary Alumni Directory 1986, Vol. I, p-904".
- ^ a b Philip Ochieng. "From Home Squared to the US Senate: How Barack Obama Was Lost and Found", The East African, 2004-11-01. Retrieved on 2008-03-23.
- ^ Scott Fornek. "AUMA OBAMA:Her restlessness, her independence", Chicago Sun Times, 2007-09-09. Retrieved on 2008-03-23.
- ^ Roger Cohen. "Obama's Brother in China", The New York Times, 2008-03-17. Retrieved on 2008-03-23.
- ^ Amazon.com: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance: Barack Obama: Books
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