Jordan Karlesson
Former President Barack Obama on Saturday became the second U.S. president to win an Emmy Award. He won it for his work on the Netflix documentary Our Great National Parks.
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Obama earned the award for Outstanding Narrator. That made him the first president to win a competitive Emmy, Netflix said in a congratulatory tweet.
The only other president to win an Emmy was Dwight Eisenhower, to whom the Television Academy gave an honorary Governors Award. He was still serving in office at the ti in 1956, CNN noted.
Obama beat out Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, David Attenborough and Lupita Nyong’o at the Creative Arts Emmys.
Netflix’s five-part series Our Great National Parks focuses on the world’s national parks and the wildlife that inhabits them. Released in April, Obama presented the program.
“Narrated by former President Barack Obama, this stunning docuseries shines the spotlight on some of the planet’s most spectacular national parks,” Netflix’s website says.
The episodes focused on landmarks across the world. They included Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Patagonia, Kenya’s Tsavo Conservation Area, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and Gunung Leuser in Indonesia.
Obama’s list of awards is extensive. They include the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2019, Time Person of the Year in 2008 and 2012, and the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in May 2017. He also won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2006 and 2008.
Meanwhile, Higher Ground Productions, a production company created by Barack Obama and Former First Lady Michelle Obama, got the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award in February 2020 for American Factory. The film followed a Chinese billionaire who opens a factory in an abandoned General Motors plant in post-industrial Ohio.
