excerpts:
However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his “poetry” and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just “Frank.”
This “Frank” is none other than Frank Marshall Davis, the black communist writer now considered by some to be in the same category of prominence as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. In the summer/fall 2003 issue of African American Review, James A. Miller of George Washington University reviews a book by John Edgar Tidwell, a professor at the University of Kansas, about Davis’s career, and notes, “In Davis’s case, his political commitments led him to join the American Communist Party during the middle of World War II—even though he never publicly admitted his Party membership.” Tidwell is an expert on the life and writings of Davis.
Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, noted that Davis, who moved to Honolulu from Kansas in 1948 “at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson,” came into contact with Barack Obama and his family and became the young man’s mentor, influencing Obama’s sense of identity and career moves. Robeson, of course, was the well-known black actor and singer who served as a member of the CPUSA and apologist for the old Soviet Union. Davis had known Robeson from his time in Chicago.
Davis, in his own writings, had said that Robeson and Harry Bridges, the head of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and a secret member of the CPUSA, had suggested that he take a job as a columnist with the Honolulu Record “and see if I could do something for them.” The ILWU was organizing workers there and Robeson’s contacts were “passed on” to Davis, Takara writes.
Barack Obama (senior) was one of the featured speakers at a Mother’s Peace Rally in Ala Moana Park on Sunday May 13, 1962. ILWU leaders, including Jack Hall, joined the march and rally. Obama, an African student from Kenya studying economics at the University of Hawaii Afro-American Affairs Institute, told the crowd of 350, “Anything which relieves military spending will help us...Peace will release great resources...” The march for peace was featured in the May 18, 1962 issue of the VOICE OF THE ILWU. Other speakers included Patsy Mink, Thomas Gill, Ralph Vanderslice, Rev. Nicolas Dizon, Rev. Seikan Higra, Rabbi Roy Rosenberg, Rev. Delwyn Rayson, and Dr. John Mollet. The ILWU was opposed to the escalating US involvement in Vietnam and held many activities to educate its members and the public.