Barack Obama - Dreams of My Father

Some day I plan to vote for Barack Obama, and I am not going to be moving to Illinois if you get my drift. With that in mind I recently completed Obama's "Dreams of My Father." Generally, when reading biographies, my preference is to wait until someone is deceased or most of their life is behind them. You get a fuller picture. Something drew me to Obama's story now.

Barack Obama is a man shaped by a rather unusual background; a mixture of African heritage and midwestern, American roots. He experienced life in Hawaii, Indonesia, New York, Chicago, and Kenya. What a diverse group of cultures to learn from.

The more Obama saw of life, the more he felt lost between a black and white world and the further disconnected he became to who he should be. In the search for his own identity, he discovered the soul of his family, and in particular his father.

He began to understand the need to adapt to newness and change, saw how power presented itself and held many people back and how doubt is a heavy burden to bare.

His organizing work in Chicago and subsequent visit to Kenya to discover his family and heritage instilled within him a drive to determine what represents a community and how one can reconcile that community with freedom.

"Dreams of My Father" is a wonderful book that explores this question and gives the reader insights into how a man of potential greatness has begun to take form. Anyone who watched Barack Obama's brilliant convention speech saw something special in him. Reading this book underlines those extraordinary qualities that he possesses and explains how they have been obtained.