The Other Barack

by Sally Jacobs

  10 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 395.

  11 From Charles Oluoch and Elly Yonga Adhiambo interviews.

  12 Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya (New York, Henry Holt and Co., 2005), 7.

  13 Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru, 2.

  14 Carol E. DePré, The Luo of Kenya: An Annotated Bibliography (Washington DC: Institute for Cross-Cultural Research, 1968), 26.

  15 Uganda Railway, Publicity Department poster, Dewar House, Haymarket S.W., undated.

  16 Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 14.

  17 Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru, 23.

  18 Richard D. Wolff, The Economics of Colonialism: Britain and Kenya, 1870–1930 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974), 119–20.

  19 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 425

  20 That figure does not take into account the rate of inflation affecting the British shilling as compared to the U.S. dollar.

  21 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 426.

  22 From Penina Ndalo interview.

  23 Bethwell A. Ogot, “British Administration in the Central Nyanza District of Kenya, 1900–60,” Journal of African History 4, no. 2 (1963), 256.

  24 Ibid., 258.

  25 From Saad Khairallah interview.

  26 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 403.

  27 Barack Obama’s date of birth is unclear. His earliest school records bear no birth date. His University of Hawaii transcript records his birthdate as June 18, 1934. His marriage certificate and résumés indicate he was born in 1936. U.S. immigration records show his year of birth as both 1934 and 1936. Family members say they believe he was born in 1936, so I have used that date.

  28 Paul Mboya, Luo Kitgi Gi Timbegi, trans. Jane Achieng (Nairobi, Kenya: Atai Joint Limited, 1938), 88.

  29 Ibid., 45.

  30 Parker Shipton, The Nature of Entrustment: Intimacy, Exchange, and the Sacred in Africa (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 51.

  31 Mboya, Luo Kitgi Gi Timbegi, 54.

  32 Onyango’s drinking habits are described by Charles Olouch, Hawa Auma, and Obama Madoho in their interviews with the author.

  33 Mboya, Luo Kitgi Gi Timbegi, 137.

  34 From Sarah Obama interview.

  35 Timothy H. Parsons, The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King’s African Rifles, 1902–1964 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999), 2.

  36 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 409.

  37 Ogot, “British Administration in the Central Nyanza District of Kenya, 1900–60,” 269.

  38 Tiyambe Zeleza, “Kenya and the Second World War, 1939–1950,” in A Modern History of Kenya, 1895–1980, ed. W. R. Ochieng (London: Evans Brothers, 1989), 166.

  39 Bethwell A. Ogot, “Kenya under the British, 1895 to 1963,” in Zamani: A Survey of East African History, ed. Ogot and J. A. Kieran (Nairobi, Kenya: East African Publishing House, 1968), 282.

  40 Ogot, “British Administration in the Central Nyanza District of Kenya, 1900–60,” 270.

  41 Matthew Carotenuto and Katherine Luongo, “Dala or Diaspora? Obama and the Luo Community of Kenya,” African Affairs 108, no. 431 (2009): 197–219.

  42 Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru, 102.

  43 This view of Mboya comes from interviews by author and Beatrice Akoth with villagers, including Charles Ogun Yamo, Charles Oluoch, Elly Yonga Adhiambo, and Penina Ndalo.

  CHAPTER 3

  1 From Obama Madoho interview.

  2 From Dominick Odida interview.

  3 Ibid.

  4 Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Random House, 1995), 415.

  5 John Oywa, “Tracing Obama Snr’s Steps as a Student at Maseno School,” The Standard, November 4, 2008.

  6 Oginga Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru: The Autobiography of Oginga Odinga (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1967).

  7 Bethwell A. Ogot, My Footprints on the Sands of Time: An Autobiography (Kisumu, Kenya: Anyange Press, 2003), 38.

  8 The year that Obama entered the Maseno School is unclear. School officials say he entered in 1951, but classmates and Obama family members place him there as early as 1949.

  9 Bethwell A. Ogot, My Footprints on the Sands of Time, 38.

  10 Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru, 62.

  11 Oywa, “Tracing Obama Snr’s Steps as a Student at Maseno School.”

  12 For a description of the “lorry” hairstyle, see Oscar Obonyo, “Kaloleni Home of Ex-Uganda Leader,” The Sunday Nation, August 15, 2004.

  13 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 419.

  14 Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya (New York, Henry Holt and Co. 2005), 26.

  15 William Robert Ochieng, A History of Kenya (London: Macmillan, 1985), 130.

  16 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 417.

  17 Ibid.

  18 Ben Macintyre and Paul Orengoh, “Beatings and Abuse Made Barack Obama’s Grandfather Loathe the British,” The Sunday Times, December 3, 2008.

  19 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 418.

  20 David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2005), 41.

  21 The Kikuyu did not keep birth records, so the year of Kenyatta’s birth is unknown. His biographer writes that he was likely born in the late 1890s. Jeremy Murray-Brown, Kenyatta (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1973), 37.

  22 Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 5; Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, xiii.

  23 Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, xvi.

  24 Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 2.

  25 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 419.

  26 David Goldsworthy, Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget (New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1982), 17.

  27 Tom Mboya, Freedom and After (London: Andre Deutsch, 1963), 29.

  28 Goldsworthy, Tom Mboya, 14.

  29 Ibid., 93.

  30 From Alfred Obama Oguta interview.

  31 From Grace Kezia Obama interview.

  32 Paul Mboya, Luo Kitgi Gi Timbegi, trans. Jane Achieng (Nairobi, Kenya: Atai Joint Limited, 1938), 65.

  33 Ibid., 66.

  34 Ibid., 80.

  35 Bethwell A. Ogot, “The Decisive Years, 1956–63,” in Decolonization and Independence in Kenya, 1940–93, ed. Bethwell A. Ogot and William Robert Ochieng (London: J. Currey, 1995), 51.

  36 Ibid., 56

  37 Dan Schecter, Michael Ansara, and David Kolodney, The CIA Is an Equal Opportunity Employer (Cambridge, MA: Africa Research Group, 1970).

  38 Goldsworthy, Tom Mboya, 159.

  CHAPTER 4

  1 Elizabeth Mooney, letter to Frank Laubach, December 21, 1958, Syracuse University, Frank C. Laubach Collection.

  2 Elizabeth Mooney, letter to Frank Laubach, February 16, 1959, Syracuse University, Frank C. Laubach Collection.

  3 Caroline Blakely and Robert S. Laubach, Literacy Journalism at Syracuse University: A Thirty-Year History, 1952–1981 (Syracuse, NY: Lit-J Alumni, 1996), 80.

  4 Jeni Klugman, Bilin Neyapti, and Frances Stewart, Conflict and Growth in Africa, Vol. 2: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda (Paris: The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1999), 36.

  5 Frank Charles Laubach, Forty Years with the Silent Billion: Adventuring in Literacy (Old Tappan, NJ: The Fleming H. Revell Co., 1970), 13.

  6 Frank Kay, “Teaching Adult Africans How to Read and Write Makes Two-Year Scheme,” East African Standard, 1957.

  7 “No, Miss Mooney,” The Sunday Post, September 22, 1957, Records of U.S. Foreign Assistance Agencies, Office of Educational Services, Africa and Europe Program Division, RG 469, The U.S. National Archives and Record Administration, College Park, MD.

  8 Elizabeth Mooney, letter from to her friends, May 31, 1957, provided by the E. M. Kirk family.

  9 Jim C. Harper, Western Educated Elites in Kenya, 1900–1963: The African American Factor (New York: Routledge, 2006), 63, 65.

  10 The Key, a publication of Kenya Adult Literary New
s, iss. 5 (February 1959): 5.

  11 Helen Roberts, letter to Muriel McCrory, May 1959, provided by her son, Don Roberts.

  12 Harper, Western Educated Elites in Kenya, 1900–1963, 3, 10.

  13 Mboya, Freedom and After (London: Andre Deutsch, 1963), 142.

  14 Harper, Western Educated Elites in Kenya, 1900–1963, 5, 94.

  15 Mboya, Freedom and After, 143.

  16 Mansfield Irving Smith, “The East African Airlifts of 1959, 1960, and 1960” (PhD dissertation, Syracuse University, 1966), 18.

  17 The International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics database derived from the United Nation’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (updated March 2011).

  18 Smith, “The East African Airlifts of 1959, 1960, and 1960,” 14.

  19 David Goldsworthy, Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget (New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1982), 76.

  20 Tom Shachtman, Airlift to America: How Barack Obama, Sr., John F. Kennedy, Tom Mboya, and 800 East African Students Changed Their World and Ours (New York: St. Martin’s, 2009), 49.

  21 Smith, “The East African Airlifts of 1959, 1960, and 1960,” 27.

  22 Harper, Western Educated Elites in Kenya, 1900–1963, 124.

  23 Smith, “The East African Airlifts of 1959, 1960, and 1960,” 38.

  24 Mboya, Freedom and After, 139.

  25 Elizabeth Mooney, letter to her brother Mark Mooney, January, 28, 1959, provided by the E. M. Kirk family.

  26 Ibid.

  27 Elizabeth Mooney, letter to Marjorie Mooney, February 16, 1959, provided by the E. M. Kirk family.

  28 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 421.

  29 Frank J. Taylor, “Colorful Campus of the Islands,” The Saturday Evening Post, May 24, 1958, 39.

  30 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 427.

  31 Helen Roberts, The Unfolding Trail, unpublished biography, 179, provided by Roberts’s son, Don Roberts.

  32 Elizabeth Mooney, letter to Marjorie Mooney, March 31, 1959, provided by the E. M. Kirk family.

  33 From Dora Mumbo interview.

  34 Smith, “The East African Airlifts of 1959, 1960, and 1960,” 37.

  35 Ramogi, July 7, 1959, 3.

  36 Elizabeth Mooney, letter to Frank C. Laubach, March 23, 1959, Syracuse University, Frank C. Laubach Collection. Used with the permission from the E. M. Kirk family.

  37 Ibid.

  38 Barack Obama, letter to Frank C. Laubach, July 28, 1959, Syracuse University, Frank C. Laubach Collection.

  39 Goldsworthy, Tom Mboya, 120–23.

  40 Elizabeth Mooney, letter to Frank C. Laubach, August 5, 1959, Syracuse University, Frank C. Laubach Collection.

  CHAPTER 5

  1 “Jet Age Makes Debut in Hawaii,” The Honolulu Advertiser, July 1, 1959.

  2 Robert C. Schmitt, Demographic Statistics of Hawaii 1778 to 1965 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1968).

  3 “First African Enrolled in Hawaii Studied Two Years by Mail,” Ka Leo O Hawaii, October 8, 1959.

  4 Honolulu Advertiser, October 10, 1959.

  5 “Isle Inter-Racial Attitude Impresses Kenya Student,” Honolulu Star Bulletin , November 28, 1959.

  6 “First African Enrolled in Hawaii Studied Two Years by Mail.”

  7 Robert M. Kamins and Robert E. Potter, Mālamalama: A History of the University of Hawai’i (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998), 4.

  8 University of Hawaii, Chancellor’s office. Figures provided to the author by Debra Ann C. Ishii, executive assistant to the chancellor in August 2009.

  9 Frank J. Taylor, “Colorful Campus of the Islands,” Saturday Evening Post, May 24, 1958, 96.

  10 Barack H. Obama, “Terror in the Congo,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 8, 1960.

  11 Ka Leo O Hawaii, November 5, 1959, 1.

  12 Lyle H. Dahling (Immigration and Naturalization Service administrator), “Memo for File,” April 1961, Barack Obama’s “A” file.

  13 “Applications to Extend Time of Temporary Stay,” July 1960 and August 1961, Barack Obama’s “A” file.

  14 Barack Obama’s transcript from the University of Hawaii, Syracuse University, Frank C. Laubach Collection.

  15 From Susan Botkin Blake interview.

  16 Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Random House, 1995), 127.

  17 Ibid., 124.

  18 Schmitt, Demographic Statistics of Hawaii 1778 to 1965, 210.

  19 Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 242.

  20 Dahling, “Memo for File.” Dahling wrote, “Subject claims to have been divorced from his wife in Kenya in this method.”

  21 David Mendell, Obama: From Promise to Power (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 29.

  22 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 126.

  23 Ibid., 422.

  24 From Susan Botkin Blake interview.

  25 From Neil Abercrombie and Pake Zane interviews.

  26 Dahling, “Memo for File.”

  27 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 12.

  28 Dahling, “Memo for File.”

  29 Certification of Life Birth, released by the Obama presidential campaign.

  30 Barack Obama’s “A” file.

  31 Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, letter to Tom Mboya, May 8, 1962, The Hoover Institution archives at Stanford University, Tom Mboya papers.

  32 Obama, Dreams from My Father, 126.

  33 Barack Obama, letter to Tom Mboya, May 29, 1962, The Hoover Institution Archive at Stanford University, Tom Mboya papers.

  34 Helen Roberts, letter to Alice Sanderson, May 15, 1962, quoted with permission from Roberts’s son, Don Roberts.

  35 Helen Roberts, letter to Alice Sanderson, July 4, 1962, quoted with permission from Roberts’s son, Don Roberts.

  36 Helen Roberts, letter to Alice Sanderson, August 21, 1962, quoted with permission from Roberts’s son, Don Roberts.

  CHAPTER 6

  1 Barack Obama, letter to Sylvia Baldwin, December 20, 1962, in the possession of Baldwin.

  2 Morton Keller and Phyllis Keller, Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America’s University (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 301–305. The Kellers describe the continuing struggle over parietals in the 1960s.

  3 Fred Hechinger, “Harvard Debates Mind-Drug Peril,” New York Times, December 14, 1962.

  4 “Struggle for Integration Must Continue, King Says,” Harvard Crimson, Oct. 25, 1962.

  5 Richard Norton Smith, The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), 224.

  6 James Reston, “Nothing Left at Harvard but Radcliffe,” New York Times, December 30, 1960.

  7 Donald E. Graham, “Kennedy Will Host Overseers Tonight as Board Begins Two-Day Meeting,” Harvard Crimson, May 13, 1963.

  8 Smith, The Harvard Century, 13.

  9 Ibid., 216.

  10 “Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments, 1962–63,” October 26, 1964, Official Register of Harvard University, vol. LXI, no. 28: 569, 570.

  11 The number of black students is calculated by consulting a number of sources. The Report of the President of Harvard College 1970–71 states that the number of minorities on campus a decade earlier was less than 1 percent. Werner Sollers, Caldwell Titcomb, and Thomas A. Underwood, eds., Blacks at Harvard: A Documentary History of African-American Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe (New York: New York University Press, 1973), estimates that in 1963 “blacks constituted about one percent of the student body” (xxiv).

  12 Ellen Lake, “Police Arrest 2 Nigerians In Bickford’s,” Harvard Crimson, May 27, 1964.

  13 Lawrence W. Feinberg, “Africans, Afro-Americans Form Club,” Harvard Crimson, April 27, 1963.

  14 “The AAAAS and Discrimination,” editorial, Harvard Crimson, January 13, 1964.

  15 Barack H. Obama’s “A” file, maintained by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS), Form 1-20A. Certificate by Non-Immigrant Student Under Section 101(a)(15)(F)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, signed by Barack H. Obama, August 1962.

  16 W. E. B. DuBois, The Autobiography of W. E. B. DuBois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century (New York: International Publishers, 1968), 136.

  17 From Stephen A. Marglin interview. Marglin received a PhD from Harvard University in 1965.

  18 From Richard E. Sylla interview. Sylla received a PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1969.

  19 From Peter D. McClelland interview. McClelland received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1966.

  20 Barack Obama, letter to Sylvia Baldwin, December 20, 1962, in possession of Baldwin.

  21 From Harris Mule interview. Mule was Obama’s boss in the 1970s.

  22 From Oyuko Onyango Mbeche, Moses Wasonga, Otieno Wasonga, and George Saitoti interviews.

  23 Omar Obama’s birth date is unclear. According to alumnae records at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols school, Omar Okech Onyango Obama was born March 10, 1945. Information provided by Beth Jacobson, BB&N director of alumnae affairs. The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicle records list his birth date as June 3, 1944.

  24 “The Status of Airlift Students,” memo to Tom Mboya, September 7, 1963, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Stanford, California, Tom Mboya papers.

  25 Buckingham Browne & Nichols alumnae records. Information provided by Beth Jacobson, BB&N director of alumnae affairs.

  26 Newton North High School records. Information provided by the principal’s office.

  27 Omar’s name change appears in court records and on his registration with the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.

  28 Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Corporations Division, the Wells Market, Inc., 1760 Dorchester Ave., Dorchester, Massachusetts, registration March 16, 1992.

  29 Maria Sacchetti, “Obama’s Aunt Is Granted Asylum,” The Boston Globe, May 18, 2010.

  30 From Zeituni Onyango interview.

  31 K. D. MacDonald, memo to J. A. Hamilton, January 31, 1964. Contained in Obama’s immigration file maintained by the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Per department policy, some names are deleted for privacy reasons.