BARACK OBAMA ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES; the first African-American man to rise to this high office. Obama is the first African-American to be nominated by a major American political party for president. A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he became the first black person to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003. After a primary victory in March 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He was elected to the Senate in November 2004 with 70 percent of the vote. He was elected in a landslide election with more than 338 electoral votes and a majority of over 52%.

The Obama administration’s support of LGBT Rights was a huge part of the achievement of marriage equality and the end of the armed services Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.