PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. He received national attention in 2004 for his well-received July Democratic National Convention keynote address and his landslide November election to the Senate. Nine months after his Inauguration as President, he was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. During his first two years in office, Obama signed many landmark bills into law, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (often referred to as “Obamacare”), the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010. In foreign policy, he increased U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, reduced nuclear weapons with the United States–Russia New START treaty, and ended military involvement in the Iraq War. His administration filed briefs that urged the Supreme Court to strike down same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional; same-sex marriage was fully legalized in 2015 in a Supreme Court ruling. Evaluations of his presidency among historians and the general public place him among the upper tier of American presidents. A December 2018 Gallup poll found Obama to be the most admired man in America for the 11th consecutive year, a record second only to Dwight Eisenhower. (More from Wikipedia)
Thomas Johnson – who became known as the Lonesome Drifter – got a poem from an insurance salesman in his hometown of Bastrop, LA called “N----r Boy”, about someone who had big plans for his life. Johnson changed the title to “Eager Boy”, though in the original, the lyrics have a real poignancy: After listing his dreams in the verses, including wanting to become Senator and maybe even President – just like the current President Barack Obama – the chorus line is: “But everybody treats me like a toy / Because I’m just a n----r boy”.
(May 2011)
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We have been bombarded with important anniversaries this year. In music, they all seem to go back to 1962. In the larger world, 1962 was the year of the Cuban missile crisis. Also, James Meredith became the first black student to enroll at Ole Miss that year; and a handful of students decided to mark the occasion by staging unseemly protests against the recent reelection of President Barack Obama. The first James Bond film, Dr. No also came out in 1962; and the tag line for the seminal film American Graffiti was, “Where Were You in ’62?”. And then there is the unexpected death of the icon to end all Hollywood icons, Marilyn Monroe, which also happened in 1962.
(Year 3 Review)
