Barack Obama was a bright-eyed child with a contagious smile and a bright future ahead of him in the 1960s and 1970s, long before he became famous.
These rare childhood images reveal his early years and feature beautiful, daily moments that show how close and affectionate his family life was.
Barack Obama grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, which gave him a unique mix of circumstances that impacted his views long before he got involved in politics.
On August 4, 1961, Barack Obama was born at the Kapiolani Medical Centre for Women and Children in Honolulu, Hawaii.
He is the only president who was not born in the 48 contiguous states. His American mother was 18 years old and his Kenyan father was 27 years old when he was born.
His mother, Ann Dunham (1942–1995), was born in Wichita, Kansas, and had ancestors from England, Wales, Germany, Switzerland, and Ireland.
Barack Obama Sr., Obama’s father, was born into the Luo ethnic group in Kenya’s Nyanza Province. He spent his early years herding goats, but he was determined to make a better life for himself.
He worked hard and was determined to get a scholarship that let him leave Kenya and go to Hawaii to follow his aspirations of going to college.
Obama Sr. met Ann Dunham while he was a student at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. On February 2, 1961, the couple got married. Six months later, their son Barack was born.
Obama didn’t see his father very often when he was a kid. Barack Sr. relocated to Massachusetts to go to Harvard University and study on his Ph.D. This changed the way the family worked.
A few months after Obama was born, the couple officially split up. Their divorce was final in March 1964, when Barack was just two years old. Not long after that, Obama Sr. went back to Kenya, leaving Ann to raise their son in Hawaii.
Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, a student from Indonesia who was also going to the University of Hawaii, in 1965.
A year later, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama got a half-sister named Maya Soetoro Ng. She was born in 1970.
Barack Obama went to school as “Barry” from ages six to ten and went to Indonesian-language schools for a total of three and a half years.
He learned to speak Indonesian fluently as a child while living in Jakarta, and he would keep this proficiency for the rest of his life.
Obama moved back to Honolulu in 1971 to live with his grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham.
He went to Punahou School, a prestigious college preparation school, on a scholarship that let him go there from fifth grade until he graduated in 1979.
He had the moniker “Barry” all through high school and up to his trip to Kenya in 1980.
Obama lived in Hawaii with his mother and half-sister Maya Soetoro from 1972 to 1975. During that time, his mother was studying anthropology at the University of Hawaii.
Obama said, “The chance to live in Hawaii and experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect became an important part of my worldview and the basis for the values that I hold most dear.”
He has also talked about how he used beer, marijuana, and cocaine as a teenager to deal with the stress of figuring out who he was.
They called their group of buddies who smoked marijuana together the “Choom Gang.” Obama was a part of this gang.
(Photo credit: Barack Obama Library Archives / Upscaled and cleared up by RHP).
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