Barack Obama grows up shuttling between Hawaii, Indonesia, and the mainland United States, the son of a white American mother and a Kenyan father, before the film traces his path through Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Back in Chicago, he works as a community organizer and civil rights lawyer on the South Side, then teaches at the University of Chicago Law School before winning a seat in the Illinois state senate representing both Hyde Park and some of the poorest wards in the city. His 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention turns him into a national figure almost overnight, and the film uses that speech as the hinge between local politician and presidential contender. It follows the 2008 campaign and his swearing-in as the 44th president, then his first-term work on healthcare reform and the economic recovery, closing with his 2012 reelection. The film stays close to the biographical record: dates, offices held, and the specific neighborhoods and schools that shaped him.