Made in Chicago: The Making of Barack Obama

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a black Kenyan father and a white American mother from Kansas, President Barack Obama was raised in Indonesia and then later in Hawaii by his maternal grandparents. But it was in Chicago that he was shaped, both socially and politically, and it is where he still lives today. Chicago is a racially polarised town where whites live largely in the neighbourhoods to the north and blacks to the south, and it was in Chicago's Southside that Barack Obama arrived in 1985. He was searching for a direction in life, and a major historical event had just taken place - Harold Washington had been elected as the first black mayor of Chicago. In Made in Chicago we look at the exceptional personal and political journey of Barack Obama through the eyes of those who have known him and worked with him since 1985. This very American story follows his progress as he rises from obscurity to become the leading candidate for the US Presidency, rallying millions of voters to elect him as the first African American US President in history - a culmination of the ongoing battle for racial equality in America fought by the Kennedys and Lyndon B Johnson. Made in Chicago is an investigation that leads us across America, not just in the footsteps of Barack Obama, but those of all Americans who came to believe in him and identify with him. It is both the exceptional personal journey of one man and his political and social commitment, and an account of the fundamental changes facing American society as a whole.