Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the President of the United States and a former junior United States Senator from Illinois. Obama is the first African American to be elected President of the United States. He is a graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was 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, won a primary victory in March 2004, was elected to the Senate in November 2004 and to the presidency in November 2008. Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004.