Born in
Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama graduated from
Columbia University in 1983 with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and later worked as a
community organizer in
Chicago. In 1988, Obama enrolled in
Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the
Harvard Law Review. He became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching
constitutional law at the
University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. In 1996, Obama was elected to
represent the 13th district in the Illinois Senate, a position he held until 2004, when he
successfully ran for the U.S. Senate. In the
2008 presidential election, after
a close primary campaign against
Hillary Clinton, he was nominated by the Democratic Party for president. Obama selected
Joe Biden as his running mate and defeated
Republican nominee
John McCain and his running mate
Sarah Palin.