He (Frank Marshall Davis) may not have actually been Obama's father, but he was almost certainly more influential.
Barack Obama, from Dreams from My Father, Three Rivers Press, New York, Revised Edition, 2004, ISBN 1-4000-8277-3, p. 76-7:
"But by the time I met Frank [Frank Marshall Davis] he must have been pushing eighty, with a big, dewlapped face and an ill-kempt gray Afro that made him look like an old, shaggy-maned lion. He would read us his poetry whenever we stopped by his house, sharing whiskey with Gramps out of an emptied jelly jar."
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From Accuracy In Media | AIM.ORG
Obama’s Red Mentor Praised Red Army
AIM Report | By Cliff Kincaid | April 30, 2008
Barack Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA (CPUSA), wrote a poem dedicated to the Soviet Red Army. “Smash on, victory-eating Red Army,” he declared. He also wrote poems attacking traditional Christianity and the work of Christian missionaries.
The “Red Army” poem goes beyond hoping for the communists to beat the Nazis in World War II and hails the Soviet revolution. It says:
Show the marveling multitudes
Americans, British, all your allied brothers
How strong you are
How great you are
How your young tree of new unity
Planted twenty-five years ago
Bears today the golden fruit of victory!
http://www.aim.org/aim-report/obamas-red-mentor-praised-red-army/
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Frank Marshall Davis
Obama’s Communist Mentor
AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid | February 18, 2008
excerpt...
"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.'
The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations."
Frank Chapman, a CPUSA supporter, has written a letter to the party newspaper hailing the Illinois senator's victory in the Iowa caucuses:
"Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle. Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary 'mole,' not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through."
-People's Weekly World (PWW), official newspaper of the Communist Party, USA
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/12302/1/405
AIM article: Obama’s Communist Mentor
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/
Barack Obama, Frank Marshall Davis, Vernon Jarrett - One Degree of Seperation
New Zeal blog ^ | Oct 17, 2008 | Trevor Loudon
"Why did Barack Obama move to Chicago? Why did he choose a city famous for its corruption and distrust of outsiders as a launching pad for his political career? Did Obama's boyhood mentor, life long communist Frank Marshall Davis influence that choice?"
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-file-38-barack-obama-frank.html
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From the Traditional Values Coalition, March 13, 2008:
"At some point in the 1970s when Barack was attending school in Hawaii, he became acquainted with Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Communist Party, USA. Davis had moved to Hawaii in 1948 from Chicago where he had been involved in Marxist-related activities.
In Hawaii, he became a mentor to Barack Obama, the man who seeks the Presidency of the United States.
Kathryn Waddell Takara, Ph.D., a Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Hawaii, has written at least two lengthy analysis of Frank M. Davis’s political activities both in Hawaii and while he was living in Chicago. Takara created the first Black Studies department at the U of H in 1971 and is an associate of such notable leftists as Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael.
Takara’s paper, 'Frank Marshall Davis: Black Labor Activist and Outsider Journalist: Social Movements In Hawaii,' describes Davis’ radical activities in Hawaii as both a writer and labor organizer.
How this committed Communist became a mentor to Barack Obama remains a mystery, but it is likely that his mother was somehow involved in far left activities in Hawaii and met Davis through her left-wing network on the University of Hawaii campus. Perhaps an enterprising reporter could ask Senator Obama how he met Davis and what sort of influence he may have had on him. Likewise, one can only speculate on the influence his rebellious, left-wing mother had on his political beliefs and aspirations.
Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s Mother Profiled By 'Chicago Tribune' In 2007:
http://www.traditionalvalues.org/print.php?sid=3282