Gateway Chronicle 2021

Barack Obama
The Gateway Chronicle
Barack Hussein Obama II was the first African
American President of the United States of America
from the 20 th January 2009 – 20 th January 2017,
holding the office for two terms. He was elected
the 44 th President of the USA on the 4 th November
2008.
Barack Obama was born on the 4 th August 1961, in
Honolulu, Hawaii. He lived in various places growing
up, including Indonesia, Los Angeles and New
York, before moving to Chicago at the age of 23,
where he worked with churches to help communities
that were affected by the closure of some local
steel plants. He then attended Harvard Law School
and became the first African-American president of
the Harvard Law Review. While at law school he
met his future wife, Michelle.
people. He cut the black healthcare uninsured rate
by a third, freed hundreds of black prisoners and
called for the closure of private prisons. He did
many other things to help black people, but when
his presidency ended, race relations in the United
States of America were not much better than when
he started. In fact, you could say that racism was
on the increase, as the American people voted for
Donald Trump as the next president, who could
be argued to have done very little for black people
living in America. This shows that Barack Obama’s
attempts at making America more diverse, and even
his attempts at making the country fair, did not
work, as a new, highly controversial president was
about to arrive: Donald Trump.
Matthew May 1.3
Obama is a member of the Democratic Party and
previously was Illinois State Senator. While president,
he passed many acts, including the Affordable
Care Act (a significant regulatory overhaul of the
USA’s healthcare coverage which meant more people
had access to healthcare, including more ethnic
minorities); the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform
and Consumer Protection Act (which included an
increase in consumer protection which helped the
general public); and the Tax, Relief, Unemployment
Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of
2010 (which kept income tax rates lower and raised
welfare payments such as unemployment benefit).
He increased troop levels in Afghanistan, ended military
involvement in Iraq (and then started it again
in 2014 after the rise of ISIS) and attempted to
reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the USA
and Russia. In 2013, he became President again,
and won against Mitt Romney, another presidential
candidate. Barack Obama also called for gun control
after a fatal shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary
School. He developed policies on global warming,
immigration and cybersecurity, and interfered in
other wars such as the Syrian Civil War. He also
ordered the death of Osama Bin Laden, the leader
of Al Qaeda. His presidency finally ended in 2017,
with the election of the Republican candidate, Donald
Trump.
Barack Obama was a role model for lots of African
Americans, especially as he was the first African
American president. He therefore showed that
people of all races could be leaders, not just white
Above: Barack Obama speaking in public during his presidency, R
80