Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a citizen of Kenya and his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was from Wichita Falls, Kansas. Obama, Jr., graduated from Columbia in 1983 with a B.A. in political science and he earned a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1991 where was he elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
After serving one term as a U.S. Senator from Illinois, he won the contentious Democratic Party nomination for president in 2008 over rival Hillary Clinton. His later win over Republican John McCain in the November general election made him the first African-American president in United States history. His initiatives as president have included the health care reform bill signed in 2010, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law the same year. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.
Obama's first book, The Dreams of My Father was a critically acclaimed memoir first published in 1995. It documents his early childhood, his struggles with identity and race, and follows his life up to his entry into Harvard Law School. The audiobook edition of the memoir narrated by Obama won him a Grammy Award in 2006 for Best Spoken Word Album.
The Audacity of Hope was his second book and a number one best seller on the New York Times list in 2008. This book serves as a look into then-Senator Obama's core values and political beliefs. He announced his candidacy for president less than three months after the book's publication. The audiobook version of The Audacity of Hope won another Grammy Award for Obama in 2008.
The audio book Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters is a children's book structured as a letter to Obama's two daughters. It tells the stories of 13 famous Americans including George Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr., and astronaut Neil Armstrong. It was written shortly before Obama became president in 2009 and proceeds are being donated to the children of killed and disabled U.S. service personnel.
LearnOutLoud.com also features a large collection of Obama's most important speeches on audio, along with podcasts, video interviews, debates and much more.