Obama continues to distance himself from the people who played important roles in his past. However, his history in Chicago and Hawaii reveals their influence.
Obama and Frank Marshall Davis
Frank Marshall Davis was identified only as Frank in Obama's memories Dreams from My Father. Davis, a radical activist and journalist had been suspected of being a member of the Communist Party in the 1950s. He was a friend of Stanley Dunhman, fObama's maternal grandfather. According to Toby Harnden, writing in the Telegraph, (Aug. 24, 2008), Obama lived with his white grandparents and was introduced to Davis in 1970 at age 10. In his memories, Obama recounts how he visited Davis several times when he was grappling with racial issues. In 1968, Davis published a hard-core pornographic autobiography under a pseudonym.
Obama and Reverend Wright
Reverend Jeremiah Wright is among four people who influenced Obama life in Chicago, according to an article in the print edition of the CBS News, by Andrew McCarthy, "The Bad Company of Barack Obama", (April 13, 2008). Rev. Wright is known as an unapologetic racist and hard Left advocate. Obama cites Wright in his inspirational memoir, The Audacity of Hope, the title taken from one of Rev. Wright's sermons. Wright inspired his congregation, of which Obama was a 20-year-member, with "black liberation theology". Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. The task of the black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the Black community. Rev. Wright married Michelle and Barak Obama and baptized their children.
Obama Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn
Bill Ayers had been indicted for bombing the Pentagon on May 19, 1972 as well as the U. S. Capitol, the State Department, banks, police stations and courthouses. He told the New York Times on September 11, 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs." Obama, then a "community organizer", made his announcement about running for office in 1995 in the home of Ayers and Dohrn. In 1997, he made a joint appearance with Ayers on a University of Chicago Panel, both of them being invited by Michelle Obama, the Associate Dean of Students Services. Among the many other times that the paths of the two men crossed was when serving on another panel together in 2002.
Obama and Rashid Khaldi
During the the years that Ayers and Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago charitable organization, they voted to donate $75,000 to the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), co-founded by Rashid Khalidi, a long time supporter of Palestinian "resistance" attacks against Israel. He has been accused of being an influential apologist for Yasser Arafat. At the University of Illinois, Khaldi and Obama and Michelle Obama and also Ayers and Dohrn were part of the same circle. He funded a fund raiser for Obama in 2000 when Obama ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U. S. House of Representatives. Obama and Michelle were part of the farewell party for Khaldi when he left Chicago for New York.
Although just these four were mentioned in the Telegraph, and CBS News articles, there are others, such as Ali E. Ata and Antoin Rezko, co-defendants on trial for fraud, obtaining fraudulent loans and defrauding investors, who were part of Obama's political life in Chicago.
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