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.

In late 1964, Obama Sr. married Ruth Beatrice Baker, a Jewish-American woman he had met in Massachusetts.

He was among a cadre of young Kenyan men who had been educated in the West in a program supported by Tom Mboya.

Barack Obama Sr. was born in 1934[2][3] in Rachuonyo District[12] on the shores of Lake Victoria just outside Kendu Bay, Kenya, at the time a colony and protectorate of the British Empire.

After his mother left the family in 1945, the three children were raised by Onyango's third wife, Sarah Ogwel of Kogelo.

[15][16] As a young man, Onyango enlisted in the British Colonial Auxiliary Forces and visited Europe, India and Zanzibar where he converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam, changing his name to Hussein.

[17] The Times alleged, based on statements from his third wife Sarah, that Onyango was jailed by British colonial authorities during the Mau Mau rebellion after being suspected of supplying information to Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KFLA) insurgents and was subject to abuse while imprisoned which resulted in several physical scars and made him "loathe the British".

[20][21] 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, and changed his name from "Baraka" to "Barack".

)[27][28] Due to his accomplishments, in 1959 Obama received a scholarship in economics through a program organized by the nationalist leader Tom Mboya.

[29][30] Initial financial supporters of the program included Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Jackie Robinson, and Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, a literacy advocate who provided most of the financial support for Obama's early years in the United States.

[31] Kirk and her literacy associate Helen M. Roberts of Palo Alto raised the money necessary for Obama to travel to the US.

[34] At Obama's request, Helen M. Roberts committed to watching over and financially supporting the family that he had left behind, for as long as she remained in Nairobi.

[37] In 1960, Obama met Stanley Ann Dunham in a basic Russian language course at the University of Hawaii and they started dating.

[36] After becoming pregnant, Dunham dropped out of the University of Hawaii after the fall 1960 semester, while Obama continued his education.

[38] Obama married Dunham in Wailuku on the Hawaiian island of Maui on 2 February 1961, despite parental opposition from both families.

[36] Their son, future US president Barack Obama II, was born in Honolulu on 4 August 1961 at the former Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital (succeeded by the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children).

[11][26] Obama was forced to leave his PhD program at Harvard University in May 1964 because of administrators' concerns over his finances and personal life, including uncertainty over the number of wives he had, but he received an M.A.

[47][30][41][51][52] In June 1964, Obama met and began dating a 27-year-old Jewish-American elementary school teacher named Ruth Beatrice Baker, the daughter of prosperous Lithuanian immigrants to the United States.

[47][30] Baker subsequently married a Tanzanian man named Ndesandjo and took his surname, as did her sons Mark and David.

"[68]According to Barack II's memoir, Obama's continuing conflict with Kenyan president Jomo Kenyatta destroyed his career.

His friend Philip Ochieng, a journalist of the Kenya newspaper Daily Nation, has described Obama's difficult personality and drinking problems.

[16][24] His funeral was attended by ministers Robert Ouko, Peter Oloo-Aringo, and other prominent political figures.