Showtime's The First Lady Cast Side by Side With Real People
See the Cast of "The First Lady" Next to Their Real-Life Counterparts
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Barack Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, met his father, Barack Obama Sr. — a Kenyan international student — while they were both studying at the University of Hawaii. The pair married and had Barack in 1961. His parents split up when he was young, and Dunham remarried an Indonesian man also studying at the University of Hawaii. The family spent time living in Indonesia while Barack was a child, and he attended school there before eventually moving back to Hawaii. He studied at Occidental College before transferring to Columbia University, majoring in political science. Barack got his law degree from Harvard before moving to Chicago for an internship. It was there that he met his future wife, Michelle.
He quickly got into politics in Chicago before being elected to the state Senate in 1996. He was elected to the US Senate in 2004 before making a run for president, going up against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, and pulling out a win. In the general election that year, he defeated John McCain to become the 44th president of the United States and the first Black man to hold the position.
Though Barack was well-liked when he took office, he had his fair share of challenges that come with leading the US. He was criticized for the struggling economy and how he handled international relations in the Middle East. But he also created Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) to make health care more accessible for Americans and the DACA program to help and protect children who were brought into the US unlawfully but wanted to stay and build a life.
He won reelection for a second term in 2012, continuing his work on the economy, the war overseas, and a whole host of worldwide issues. Through it all, Michelle was by his side, creating a united front for the political work he was doing and the social work she was doing. He passed the baton when he left office in early 2017 but has still remained active in politics and in the public eye.