Mercy johnson mother biography of barack obama

Our editors handpick the products that we feature. We may earn commission from the links on this page. Obama wasn't the first president nor the last to have a parent born outside of the United States, but his status as the first bi-racial president and an unconventional childhood —which began in Honolulu, Hawaii, and included time in Seattle, and Indonesia—made his upbringing the subject of much attention.

Though the two were not together for long, their lives remained intertwined as each went on to successful careers in the worlds of academia and international development. As far back as a interview with OprahObama spoke openly about his diverse family, joking about how different they looked from one another—and his wife, Michelle Obama'sreaction to his diverse crew.

We've got it all. The lives and travels of Obama's parents have been central to his public life, dating back to the racist and unfounded "birtherism" movement that alleged, without evidence, that Barack Obama was not a U. To better understand the history of our 44th president before reading his new memoir A Promi sed Landwe put together some key facts on the lives of Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr.

Per Scott, Dunham became pregnant inand she married Obama Sr. Their marriage was exceptional for happening "at a time when nearly two dozen states still had laws against interracial marriage. After their baby was born, Dunham decided to go to Seattle with baby Barack to be around family, while Obama Sr. As Scott wrote in A Singular Woman, " The president's mother has served as any of a number of useful oversimplifications.

In actuality though, according to Scott, she was not only an important, inspirational figure in her son's life, but also a teacher and a forward-thinking worker who helped with local development and "consulted on microfinance projects" in Indonesia. There was a period in where she was working in what her boss described to me as 'community development in Java.

The family then moved together to Jakarta, where she started working on what would eventually be an anthropology master's degree. The other flaw I found was that the author seemed to lose her objectivity in her admiration for her subject. Not that that admiration was necessarily misplaced, but it made me question her credibility just a little.

I recommend this book if you're interested in reading about accomplished women or curious about how the President took as his core values such things as education, hard work, intelligence, tolerance for the views of everyone, and working to make the world a better place for the least among us. His mother didn't just teach these values, she lived them all her life.

I would have liked to have known a bit more about what was really going on in her personal life, but it seems that that information is lost forever with the woman. However, I did come away with the impression that she definitely always put herself first. Maybe that really was her full story but I felt there were a few too many missing pieces about who Dunham really was personally.

Scott does a wonderful job describing the logistics of Ann Dunham's life and I found her to be a fascinating person. She made choices in her life especially regarding the raising of her children which I would not be comfortable with but she comes across as an open minded, caring and adventurous spirit. Reading about her life and her choices did provide me with some insight into the life and character of her mercy johnson mother biography of barack obama, our 44th President.

Although I really enjoyed reading this book, I couldn't help but feel that I ended up knowing a lot of facts about Ann Dunham but I really didn't develop a true sense of what sort of woman and mother she was on a personal level. Perhaps that is because she, like her son, preferred to keep her innermost feelings more to herself. I did come away from this book though feeling very strongly that she would have been thrilled and very proud of the man her son became.

Rebecca McPhedran. She was, indeed Obama's mother, but she was also many other things. She had two children, Barack and Maya. She was a well respected anthropologist and woman's advocate. She was a giving and loving person, who fell in love with Indonesia and spent half of her adult life studying the people who lived there. She was a strong willed woman, who followed her dreams, and made sure that even when she couldn't be with her children, they were at least taken care of.

Their education was one of her top priorities. In a time when women were going to school to gain "MRS" degrees, she was blazing a new trail for women and anthropologists. An amazing woman, whose love and belief that we can all work together and help each other, definitely matches with her sons philosophy. A great read! Janny Scott writes about a subject that died far too early -- Ann Dunham, the mother of Barack Obama.

She was an idealist that made helping the poor a focus of her life. Her parents both regretted not going to college and they instilled in her an ambition and love of education. Dunham passed that onto her children who are now President of the United States and a college Education professor at the University of Hawaii. She was a free spirit, who would have surely gone on to influence micro credit and women's programs more significantly if she had not died of uterine cancer in My first suggestion is to forget everything you have heard about her in the press- bohemian, hippy chick who traveled to the other side of the world to learn basketweaving; naive, midwestern girl who fell for the exotic charms of an older man from Kenya; selfish single Mom who put her dreams before her children.

All this is far too simplistic. I found her life to be just as remarkable if not more than her history-making son. Mary Addison-lamb. This was a great book to read on the eve of the mercy johnson mother biography of barack obama of President Obama. Ann was a woman five years my senior However, where she turned left into adventure and self-identity, I turned right into safety and reluctance.

She is who I wish I could have been. Her son and daughter, tributes to their mother. The story of Stanley Ann Dunham would be interesting, important and moving even if she were not the mother of a president of the United States. Although her PhD was in Anthropology, she was a pioneer in microlending projects. Stories of her unconventional character, family relationships and experiences in Indonesia are fascinating.

Stanley Ann Dunham was a fascinating woman who led a challenging life on her own terms, and also happened to be the mother of Barack Obama. This biography focuses on her, and she is such a genuine character it is easy to forget about her son while reading, but it is also clear the influence she had on her children. I am adding her to my personal list of sempai-mamas who guide me in raising bicultural American children abroad.

It wasn't Andre Agassi's "Open" or anything, but I did find it interesting for the most part. Overall, this was not a very comfortable read, as I only had access to the Indonesian translation rather than the original English language version. So either my Indonesian comprehension was not up to scratch or the book was rather poorly translated. But in any case, the remarkable story of Stanley Ann Dunham transcended the linguistic challenges I faced.

This woman truly led an extraordinary life, where time and again, the choices that she made demonstrated that she was brave, that she was strong, and that she was authentic. I daresay that the fact that she was Barack Obama's mother is the least of her many outstanding accomplishments. And it is a pity that Barack Obama mentions her so little, when she clearly was one of the strongest influences in his life.

What inspires me the most is the way she embraced Indonesia head on, and it puts me to shame. This is a woman who truly and passionately cared about my country, lived and devoted herself here for many years and really tried to do something meaningful. Makes me feel incredibly fake and frivolous for feeling sorry for myself after only living here for nine months, and especially when I have not even contributed a single thing I can be proud of!

I did not have the privilege of knowing Stanley Ann Dunham though, I really wish I didbut after reading this unforgettable biography, I sincerely hope that one day, I will find the courage to do perhaps just half the things she managed to do. Making this book entailed many interviews and reading of histories, letters, and anything else that Janny Scott could get her hands upon.

As a result, there are many references to people to whom she talked. That made the beginning 80 pages almost turn me off for I wanted to get to know Barack Obama's Mother, not her antecedents. Stanley Ann Dunham was a strong unusual woman as the other book reviews in Goodreads. What interested me most was trying to envision what made Barack the kind of leader he is.

The best example for me was when the book describes the typical Indonesian as a person who perfers no direct accosting when talking, but who listens with patience and puts themselves into the thinking of the person talking and infers what they mean. By growing up in Indonesia, Barack has evolved with this trait. He listens, considers, and then answers without rancor.

I find it interesting that his mother was criticised for sending him to her parents in Hawaii. She took care of him and home schooled him until he was twelve, then sent him to Hawaii to get a better education. His mother was not a person of means, but people of means in the US and Britain who can afford it, send their children to prep school at 12 or 14 and no one criticises them for so doing.

Author 11 books followers. You'd think a woman who was born in Kansas, moved to Hawaii, married an African national ingave birth to the first African American president, then left the country for Indonesia would have a life more interesting than the one portrayed here. I very nearly did not finish this book. As it is, I have to confess to skipping over several pages of detailed descriptions of Dunham's field work among the peasants in Indonesia and her various job duties and recollections of her many coworkers.

The author is very thorough and has done an admirable job of tracking down probably hundreds of people who knew Stanley Ann Dunham during her lifetime. But I think a lot of the minutiae could have been left out. She wrote the Legislative Agenda and first White paper for WY inrepresenting all sectors from healthcare to education. InShe formed an emergency humanitarian team that gave aid to Japan during the tsunami and she worked with the Consul to ensure US aid reached the neediest.

Her doctoral degrees with honors, diplomas, and certificates are in theology, leadership, administration, business management, hospice and grief counseling, law enforcement, music, marketing, and stage production. However, after much discernment and spiritual counseling, knowing she was being called to the ordination of Holy Orders by our Lord, she left the Basilica into be ordained to the office of Priest, by The Reverend Quincy Carr, Sr.

Pastor and Dean of the Seminary, teaching over men and women from around the world. Inshe trained as a Chaplain with a special interest in Bereavement and became a certified Christian Chaplain with the International Federation of Christian Chaplains, RI, badge This chaplaincy is strengthened by her education in working with people from all backgrounds and beliefs.

She is able to bridge cultural gaps with her loving kindness, and assist at accidents, deaths, visiting the elderly in nursing homes and hospices, counselling the homeless, tending to those with special needs, praying with the poorest of the poor on streets where most fear to walk, visiting the incarcerated, and comforting Aids patients by sitting vigil by their side so they do not die alone.

She does this ministry work with a heart full of unembarrassed mercy and compassion. She officiates several funerals each month, always at no cost to families, and is listed in OH to officiate at graveside services for indigent men and women as part of her deeply committed service to the community. Whilst studying for her Doctoral degrees in theology and comparative religion, she studied with several prominent religious leaders, including Judaism with the Sedona, AZ Jewish Community under the guidance of Rabbi Dr.

Johnathan Seidel. Her teaching films have been viewed by millions across social media. She is also an accomplished filmmaker, songwriter, musician, and graphic art designer. Dunham's employer-provided health insurance covered most of the costs of her medical treatment, leaving her to pay the deductible and uncovered expenses, which came to several hundred dollars per month.

The book was revised and edited by Dunham's graduate advisor, Alice G. Deweyand Nancy I. Dunham's daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ngwrote the foreword for the book. In his afterword, Boston University anthropologist Robert W. Hefner describes Dunham's research as "prescient" and her legacy as "relevant today for anthropology, Indonesian studies, and engaged scholarship".

After moving to Indonesia, she was attracted to the striking textile art of the batik and began to collect a variety of different fabrics. In December Dunham was awarded the Bintang Jasa Utama, Indonesia 's highest civilian award; the Bintang Jasa is awarded at three levels, and is presented to those individuals who have made notable civic and cultural contributions.

In its first six years the scholarship fund has awarded eleven college scholarships. On January 1,President Obama and his family visited an exhibition of his mother's anthropological work on display at the East—West Center. In the film Barrya dramatization of Barack Obama's life as an undergraduate college student, Dunham is played by Ashley Judd.

In his memoir Dreams from My FatherBarack Obama wrote, "My mother's confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn't possess In a land [Indonesia] where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship My mother's own experiences Her memories of the Christians who populated her youth were not fond ones And yet for all her professed secularism, my mother was in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I've ever known.

Mercy johnson mother biography of barack obama

She felt that somehow, wandering through uncharted territory, we might stumble upon something that will, in an instant, seem to represent who we are at the core. That was very much her philosophy of life—to not be limited by fear or narrow definitions, to not build walls around ourselves and to do our best to find kinship and beauty in unexpected places.

Dunham's best friend in high school, Maxine Box, said that Dunham "touted herself as an atheist, and it was something she'd read about and could argue. She was always challenging and arguing and comparing. She was already thinking about things that the rest of us hadn't. She was an agnostic. She basically gave us all the good books—the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the Buddhist scripturethe Tao Te Ching —and wanted us to recognize that everyone has something beautiful to contribute.

But she felt that a lot of Christians behaved in un-Christian ways. In a speech, Obama contrasted the beliefs of his mother to those of her parents, and commented on her spirituality and skepticism: "My mother, whose parents were nonpracticing Baptists and Methodists, was one of the most spiritual souls I ever knew. But she had a healthy skepticism of religion as an institution.

Obama also described his own beliefs in relation to the religious upbringing of his mother and father:. My father was from Kenya and a lot of people in his village were Muslim. He didn't mercy johnson mother biography of barack obama Islam. Truth is he wasn't very religious. He met my mother. My mother was a Christian from Kansas, and they married and then divorced.

I was raised by my mother. So, I've always been a Christian. The only connection I've had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father's side came from that country. But I've never practiced Islam. A woman named Stanley: "Madelyn thought that was the height of sophistication! The coincidence that her husband was also Stanley only deepened the association.

Anyone writing about Dunham's life must address the question of what to call her. She was Stanley Ann Dunham at birth and Stanley Ann as a child, but dropped the Stanley upon graduating from high school. Then she kept her husband's name but modernized the spelling to Sutoro. Ann Dunham Sutoro. In conversation, Indonesians who worked with her in the late s and early s referred to her as Ann Dunham, putting the emphasis on the second syllable of the surname.

Toward the end of her life, she signed her dissertation S. Ann Dunham and official correspondence Stanley Ann Dunham. Names containing oeHowever, older spellings are still used in some personal names After her divorce from Lolo Soetoro, Ann Dunham kept his last name for a number of years while she was still working in Indonesia, but she changed the spelling to Sutoro.

Their daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng, chose to keep the traditional spelling of her Indonesian surname. Mary Toutonghi Anna was taking night classes at the University of Washington, and according to the University of Washington's registrar's office her major was listed as history. She was enrolled at the University of Washington in the fall oftook a full course load in the spring of and had her transcript transferred to the University of Hawaii in the fall of Actually I had hoped to move to Jogja at midyear, but was unable to win a contract release from my old school in Jakarta they sponsored me via an Asia Foundation grant for my first two years in Hawaii.

As it turns out, however, I had plenty to do to keep me busy in W. Java, and was able to carry out reasonably complete surveys of 3 village areas within radius of Jakarta. At present I am staying with my mother-in-law on the corner of Taman Sari inside the Benteng, but according to old law foreigners are not allowed to live inside the Benteng.

I had to get a special dispensation from the kraton on the grounds that I am "djaga-ing" my mother-in-law she is 76 and strong as a horse but manages to look nice and frail. In June I am having Barry come over for the summer, however, and will probably need to find another place, since I don't think I can stretch an excuse and say we are both needed to djaga my mother-in-law.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. American anthropologist, mother of Barack Obama — Not to be confused with the equestrian Anne Dunham. Wichita, KansasU. HonoluluHawaii, U. Barack Obama Sr. Lolo Soetoro. Barack Obama Maya Soetoro-Ng.

Stanley Armour Dunham father Madelyn Dunham mother. Early life [ edit ]. Family life and marriages [ edit ]. Further information: Family of Barack Obama. First marriage [ edit ]. Second marriage [ edit ]. Professional life [ edit ]. Illness and death [ edit ]. Posthumous interest [ edit ]. Personal beliefs [ edit ]. Publications [ edit ].