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Author: Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama (b. 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, he attended Columbia University and Harvard Law School, after which he worked as an attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. In 1997, he was elected to the Illinois Senate, and in 2004 was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois. He assumed the Office of President in January 2009 and was reelected in 2012. He is the author of three books: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995), The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006), and Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters (2010). 

Address on Lincoln’s 200th Birthday

Barack Obama
On the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birthday—February 12, 2009—President Barack Obama (b. 1961), newly inaugurated, made these remarks at Lincoln’s resting place of Springfield, Illinois.

Remarks at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Dedication

Barack Obama

Since August 2011, the National Mall in Washington, DC contains a large monument in memory of Martin Luther King Jr., erected, according to the official vision statement, to “captur[e] the essence of his message, a message in which he so eloquently affirms the commanding tenets of the American Dream—Freedom, Democracy and Opportunity for All; a noble quest that gained him the Nobel Peace Prize and one that continues to influence people and societies throughout the world.”