Barack Hussein Obama Sr. (; born Baraka Obama, 18 June 1934 – 24 November 1982) was a Kenyan senior governmental economist and the father of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. He is a central figure of his son's memoir, Dreams from My Father (1995). Obama married in 1954 and had two children with his first wife, Kezia. He was selected for a special program to attend college in the United States and studied at the University of Hawaii where he met Stanley Ann Dunham, whom he married in 1961 following the conception of his son, Barack II. Dunham divorced Obama three years later. The elder Obama later went to Harvard University for graduate school, where he earned an M.A. in economics, and returned to Kenya in 1964. He saw his son Barack once more, when his son was about 10.
In late 1964, Obama Sr. married Ruth Beatrice Baker, a Jewish-American woman he had met in Massachusetts. They had two sons together before separating in 1971 and divorcing in 1973. Obama first worked for an oil company, before beginning work as an economist with the Kenyan Ministry of Transport. He gained a promotion to senior economic analyst in the Ministry of Finance. He was among a cadre of young Kenyan men who had been educated in the West in a program supported by Tom Mboya. Obama Sr. had conflicts with Kenyan president Jomo Kenyatta, which adversely affected his career. He was fired and blacklisted in Kenya, finding it nearly impossible to get a job. Obama Sr. was involved in three serious car accidents during his final years; he died as a result of the last one in 1982.
Early life
Barack Obama Sr. was born in 1934 in Rachuonyo District on the shores of Lake Victoria just outside Kendu Bay, British Kenya, at the time a colony and protectorate of the British Empire. He was raised in the village of Nyang'oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Nyanza Province. His family are members of the Luo ethnic group.
His father was Onyango (later Hussein) Obama (c. 1895–1979), and his mother was Habiba Akumu Nyanjango (c. 1918–2006) of Karabondi, Kenya, Onyango's second wife. They had two daughters and a son together, Barack Obama (Sr.). After Akumu separated from Onyango and left the family in 1945, her three children were raised by Onyango's third wife, Sarah Ogwel of Kogelo.
As a young man, Onyango Obama traveled widely, enlisting in the British colonial forces and visiting Europe, India, and Zanzibar. There, he converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam and took the name Hussein. He became a cook for missionaries and a local herbalist in Nairobi.
The Times of London, relying on statements by Obama's third wife, Sarah Onyango Obama, 87, reported that in 1949, after becoming more politically active, Obama was jailed by the British for two years for suspicion of supplying military information to the Kenyan independence movement, owing to "His job as a cook to a British army officer." According to Sarah, Obama was subjected to beatings and abuse that left him with physical scars and a loathing of the British. David Maraniss' 2012 biography of President Barack Obama states that his grandfather Obama did not participate in the insurrections; nor was he ever imprisoned by the British during the uprising. He continued to be trusted by white Kenyans.
When Obama (Sr.) was about six years old and attending a Christian missionary school, he converted from Islam to Anglicanism when strongly encouraged by the staff. He changed his name from "Baraka" to "Barack". Obama (Sr.) later became an atheist, believing that religion was mere superstition.
While still living near Kendu Bay, Obama (Sr.) attended Gendia Primary School. After his family moved to Siaya District, he transferred to Ng'iya Intermediate School. From 1950 to 1953, he studied at Maseno National School, an exclusive Anglican boarding school in Maseno. The head teacher, B.L. Bowers, described Obama in his records as "very keen, steady, trustworthy and friendly. Concentrates, reliable and out-going."
In 1954 at age 20, Obama (Sr.) married Kezia Aoko in a tribal ceremony in Kenya. They had two children, Malik (a.k.a. Roy) and Auma, during the early years of their marriage.
College and graduate school
In 1959, the Kenyan Department of Education published Obama's monograph, entitled Otieno jarieko. Kitabu mar ariyo. 2: Yore mabeyo mag puro puothe. (English: Otieno, the wise man. Book 2: Wise ways of farming.)