The president-elect (then Illinois state senator), who first brought the house down back in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention, takes a rare break from his 16-hour workday to tell Oprah about his multicultural upbringing, political plans and priorities, and loving family.

Note: This interview appeared in the November 2004 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.

It's a speech I'll never forget: Barack Obama, the Illinois state senator from Chicago, addressing the nation at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. "I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on earth is my story even possible," he said with a fervor that could be felt through the airwaves. "Tonight we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers or the power of our military or the size of our economy," he continued. "Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over 200 years ago: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

The man whose name means "blessed" in Arabic is the son of a Kenyan father, Barack Obama Sr., and a white mother, Ann Dunham, from Kansas. The two met as college students in Hawaii in 1959 (Barack Sr. was the first African to enroll at the University of Hawaii), and two years later, when Ann was just 19, their child was born. At the time, miscegenation was still a crime in many states, and it was also unwelcome in Kenya. Under that pressure, Barack Sr. left the marriage when his son was just 2 years old and went to Harvard to pursue a PhD. Later, after he had returned to Kenya to work as an economist, Ann married an Indonesian man, and when Barack was 6, the family moved to a town outside Jakarta, where Maya, Barack's sister, was born. After four years, the family returned to Hawaii and Barack began corresponding with his father and trying to understand his African heritage. His father's death in a traffic accident in Nairobi in 1982 prompted Barack to travel to Kenya and meet the rest of his family for the first time.

Following his graduation from Columbia University, Barack attended Harvard Law School and became the first African-American president of its law review. In 1992 he married Michelle Robinson, also a Harvard-educated lawyer. The couple has two daughters: Malia, 6, and Sasha, 3.

Barack's autobiography, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, was published in 1995, when he was 33. The following year, he won a seat in the Illinois state senate, representing Chicago's poverty-stricken South Side. Still, Obama wasn't exactly a household name when he stepped into the race for the U.S. Senate last year. But then he won the primary with 53 percent of the vote and captured the attention of John Kerry, which landed him on the world stage for one of the most extraordinary speeches I've ever heard.

Start reading Oprah's interview with Barack Obama

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• How Michelle Obama gets unstuck
• Barack on his first date with Michelle
• Get more Oprah and Michelle Obama—interviews, videos and articles

From the November 2004 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

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