Who Is Barack Obama’s Mother, Stanley Ann Dunham?

Stanley Ann Dunham was a self-assured 18-year-old when she married Barack Obama, Sr. at a time when interracial marriage was considered a crime throughout most of the U.S. Black people also faced intense discrimination in Indonesia, where Dunham later moved with her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, and her young Black son, Barack Obama, in the late ’60s. An acquaintance of Dunham’s later spoke to biographer Janny Scott, saying Dunham taught a young Barack Obama to be fearless in the face of adversity, per the New York Times. 

While living in Indonesia, Dunham started working with metalsmiths and textile artisans, developing a microfinance model that helped these small businesses become economically sustainable enough to support local families. Dunham brought the same microloan program to Pakistan in partnership with the Agricultural Development Bank, and the financial model is still used in Indonesia today.

“A Singular Woman” author Janny Scott told NPR that Dunham sent Barack back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents so that he could have an English-language education. Dunham stayed behind in Indonesia, something Scott said contributed to the mother’s feelings of longing for her son overseas. But despite the geographical distance, Dunham was able to impart values to the future president that he would continue to pursue as an adult, transforming Barack Obama into the man he is today.