Rising Star

by David J. Garrow

  17. Andy Roth postcards to Alex McNear, n.d. March and 22 September 1981, McNear Papers; Phil Boerner diary entries, 18 April and 22 May 1981, Boerner Papers; DJG interviews with Andy Roth, Phil Boerner, Tom Grauman, Larry Hogue, Susan Keselenko, Alex McNear, Margot Mifflin, Hasan Chandoo, Caroline Boss, Eric Moore, and Bill Snider; I. M. Anal, “Visionaries Get Down Get Latent at Colloquium” and “Dorm Damage,” TO, 24 April 1981, pp. 3, 12; Laura Pelegrin, “Campus Response to Sex Questionnaire,” TO, 1 May 1981, p. 5,

  18. “Apartheid,” TO, 27 February 1981, p. 16; “SCAA,” TO, 6 March 1981, p. 12; Debbie Levi, “Minority Exodus Creates Concern” and Arpie Balekjian, “Faculty Re-establishes GPAs on Transcripts,” TO, 13 March 1981, pp. 1, 11; “Housing,” TO, 10 April 1981, p. 16; “Confluence to Explore Oxy’s Level of Tolerance,” TO, 17 April 1981, p. 7; La Encina 1981, p. 77; Black Student Directory, n.d. (ca. March 1981), Occidental College Archives; Kevin Terpstra, “Racism?,” TO, 13 March 1981, p. 2; “SCC Statement,” TO, 4 June 1981, p. 4; Stephanie O’Neill, “Occidental College Rejects Student Petition for Divestiture,” LAT, 16 April 1987; Blanca Labunog Araujo e-mail to DJG. See also “Southern Africa Resource Project,” n.d. (ca. June 1981), Carol B. Thompson and Bud Day Papers, Michigan State University, detailing a metropolitan Los Angeles effort in the spring of 1981 in which the two Oxy participants were Ghanaian undergraduate Yaw Manu and sociology professor Dario Longhi.

  19. “Free U. by DSA and Urban Studies” flyer, 3 March 1981, and “Oxy CISPES Chapter” flyer, 4 March 1981, Alex McNear Papers; DJG interviews with Paul Carpenter, Hasan Chandoo, and Paul Anderson; Bill Billiter, “3,000 Protest U.S. Role in El Salvador,” LAT, 19 April 1981, pp. B1, B4; Debbie Levi, “CISPES Symposium Slated,” TO, 8 May 1981, p. 4; Levi and Susan Keselenko, “Panel Ponders El Salvador Crisis,” TO, 15 May 1981, pp. 1, 9, 11; “A Day for El Salvador” flyer, 24 May 1981, “The Liberation of El Salvador” flyer, 31 May 1981, and CISPES “Dear Friend” letter, n.d. (early June 1981), McNear Papers; Pete Hamill, “What Does Lou Grant Know About El Salvador?,” New York Magazine, 15 March 1982, pp. 24–30; Chandoo in Hisey, “Center Stage,” Occidental Magazine, Fall 2004, pp. 24–29. On CISPES, see also Van Gosse, “‘The North American Front’: Central American Solidarity in the Reagan Era,” in Mike Davis and Michael Sprinker, eds., Reshaping the U.S. Left: Popular Struggles in the 1980s (Verso, 1988), pp. 11–50, at 23–26, U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, The FBI and CISPES, S. Rpt. 101-46, July 1989, esp. pp. 20–21, and Nora Hamilton and Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, Seeking Community in a Global City: Guatemalans and Salvadorans in Los Angeles (Temple University Press, 2001), pp. 130–31. On Romero’s assassination, see especially Tom Gibb, “The Killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero,” Guardian, 22 March 2000. Carpenter would recall Obama encouraging him to take courses taught by Egan, who would die at age forty in a Honduran airplane crash. Suzanne P. Kelly, “Carleton Professor Believed to Be Among Honduran Crash Victims,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, 24 October 1989.

  20. “Forum on Pakistan Scheduled Sunday,” TO, 8 May 1981, p. 14; Steve Tulchin and Chris Welton, “Forum Focuses on Pakistani Oppression,” TO, 15 May 1981, pp. 1, 10; “Dissident Judge Steps Down,” Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October 1980, p. 3; Feroz Ahmed, “Afzal Bangash: A Life Dedicated to Militant Struggle,” Economic & Political Weekly, 20 December 1986, p. 2219; Jose Salcedo and Linda Duffy, “Support,” TO, 15 May 1981, p. 13; Susan Keselenko, “Lawrence Goldyn: Reflections on an Abrupt Occidental Experience,” TO, 29 May 1981, pp. 4–5; Lawrence Goldyn e-mail to DJG.

  21. DJG interviews with Tom Grauman, Caroline Boss, Alex McNear, Phil Boerner, Eric Moore, Sim Heninger, and Kent Goss; Phil Boerner diary entries, 29 May and 5 and 6 June 1981, Boerner Papers; Jeremy Feldman, “Tight Housing Discourages Transfer Applications to CC,” Columbia Spectator [CS], 18 November 1981, pp. 1, 2; Moore in Sharkey, “Friends of Barry,” in Wolffe et al., “When Barry Became Barack,” in Howser, “Barack Obama’s Days at Occidental,” and in his interview with Jim Gilmore; Goss in Helman, “Small College Awakened Future Senator,” and in Remnick, The Bridge, p. 105. The second Feast would not appear until mid-December 1981; Occidental College Archives. See also Jeremy Feldman, “Going After Obama,” Columbia Spectator, 5 June 2012, a wonderful response to an Obama detractor who distorted Feldman’s story from thirty-one years earlier in order to demean: Charles C. Johnson, “Did Obama Have Lower SAT Scores Than George W. Bush?,” Brietbart.com, 22 May 2012.

  22. DJG interviews with Dina Silva, Caroline Boss, John Drew, Phil Boerner, Paul Carpenter, Hasan Chandoo, Keith Kakugawa, and Asad Jumabhoy; Drew in Kessler, “Obama Expressed Radical Views”; Drew, “Was Obama a Committed Marxist in College?”; Drew, “Meeting Young Obama”; John Drew to Alex McNear, 13 July 1981, McNear Papers; Paul Carpenter to Phil Boerner, 13 June 1981, Boerner Papers; Madelyn Dunham in Mendell, Obama, p. 58; Stanley Ann Dunham, “Application for Passport,” 27 April 1981, Dunham Passport File; Ann Dunham Sutoro résumés circa 1981 and 1993, Dunham Papers; Andra Wisnu, “Friends Reflect on Legacy of Obama’s Mother,” Jakarta Post, 14 November 2008; Mary S. Zurbuchen, “Ann Dunham Sutoro and the Ford Foundation’s International Philanthropy,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, December 2009; Dunham, Surviving Against the Odds, p. 300; Scott, A Singular Woman, p. 220, 254–55; Larry Rohter, “Obama Says Real Life Experience Trumps Rivals’ Foreign Policy Credits,” NYT, 10 April 2008, p. A18; Richard Wolffe and Michael Hirsh, “A Man at Home in the World,” Newsweek, 12 April 2008; Adam Goldman and Robert Tanner (AP), “Old Friends Recall Obama’s Years in L.A., N.Y.,” 15 May 2008; Rajghatta, “McCain vs. Obama,” Times of India, 8 June 2008; Azhar Masood, “Obama’s Larkana Connection,” Pakistan Times, 10 July 2008; Hamid in Remnick, The Bridge, p. 112; Wolffe, Renegade, pp. 238–40. Years later, Obama would tell a French questioner that “I have traveled through the south of France when I was in college,” perhaps to visit Occidental friend Laurent Delanney. Interview with Laurence Haim, Canal Plus, 1 June 2009, Public Papers of the Presidents 2009, Vol. I, p. 747.

  23. Obama, DFMF, pp. 113–14, 118–19; Sohale Siddiqi in Goldman and Tanner, “Old Friends Recall Obama’s Years”; Siddiqi interview with Jim Gilmore; Phil Boerner diary entries, 16 and 29 June and 8 September 1981, Phil Boerner to Karen McCraw, 8, 10, 20, and 25 August and 1 September 1981, Boerner Papers; Boerner, “Barack Obama ’83, My Columbia College Roommate,” Columbia College Today, January–February 2009; Alison Leigh Cowan, “Recollections of Obama’s Ex-Roommate,” NYTimes.com, 20 January 2009; Kim Clark, “Obama’s Lessons for Transfer Students,” U.S. News, 16 January 2009; Lydia DePillis, “Obama Slept Here,” New York Observer, 1 February 2009; DJG interviews with Boerner and Paul Carpenter; Bradley Gallo, “Meet the Roommate-in-Chief,” Northattan.org, 20 October 2009; Boerner in Marie-Joelle Parent, “Obama’s Guide to New York,” Ottawa Sun, 15 November 2009; Elizabeth A. Harris, “President Obama Studied Here,” NYT, 13 June 2010; Krisanne Alcantara, “Inside President Barack Obama’s Former NYC Apartment,” realestate.aol.com, 13 August 2012.

  On Emmett W. Bassett, who graduated from Tuskegee Institute in 1942 under the tutelage of George Washington Carver before earning a Ph.D. at Ohio State University in 1956 and teaching first at Columbia and then at the New Jersey College of Medicine, see Nathan Mayberg, “Black History Month Celebrated at College,” Sullivan County Democrat, 24 February 2004; David Colman, “Director’s Corner,” Neuro News (McGill University), April 2008; Bassett and his wife Priscilla’s 2011 oral history interview with Joseph Mosnier, Grahamsville, NY; his 4 October 2013 obituary in the Sullivan County Democrat; and the program from his memorial service, Boerner Papers. On Obama’s cooking, see also Kenneth T. Walsh, “No Silver Spoon for Obama,” U.S. News, 9 June 2008, p. 18. On Earl Chew, see Laurie Becklund, “Jurors Haunted by Guilty Verdict Want It Set Aside,” LAT, 1 July 1992, p. A1; Becklund, “Judge Heeds Jurors’ Pleas, Orders Retrial,” LAT, 2 July 1992, p. A1; “California Case Puts Spotlight on Jury Co
ercion and Peer Pressure,” NYT, 17 July 1992; and especially John Schwada, “Looking for Obama,” MyFoxLA.com, 29 February 2008.

  24. Columbia University Bulletin 1981–83, esp. pp. 2–8, 32–33, 35, 45–47, 53, and Columbia College Courses of Instruction 1981–82, Columbia University Archives; Phil Boerner Columbia transcript and Phil Boerner diary entry, 8 September 1981, Boerner Papers; Obama to Ann Sutoro, 21 September 1981, Dunham/Solyom Papers; Tammerlin Drummond, “Barack Obama’s Law,” LAT, 12 March 1990, pp. E1–E2 (stating that Obama paid off his undergraduate student loans during 1984); Obama interview with David Axelrod, 7 February 2004, JKP; DJG interviews with Phil Boerner, Pern Beckman, Gerrard Bushell, Darwin Malloy, Ron Sunshine, and William Araiza; Rifka Rosenwein, “Alienation Is Common for Minority Students,” CS, 25 September 1981, p. 1; Joseph Walsh, “Students Label CU Life Depressing,” CS, 13 October 1981, p. 1; Danny Ly, “Striking Tenants Demand Front-Door Locks,” CS, 16 November 1981, p. 1; Tom Todreas in Columbia College Today, May–June 2009, pp. 56–57; Obama to Boerner, 21 October 1986, Boerner Papers.

  On Frank Ayala, who ironically would end his career as dean of students at Occidental College, see Jon Elsen, “Princeton Dean Named to Columbia Position,” CS, 20 September 1979, p. 1; Richard Froehlich, “Ayala Goes West—Back to School,” CS, 22 April 1982, p. 4; and Occidental Weekly, 26 November 2007.

  25. “A Forum on South Africa—Including the Film The Rising Tide” flyer, 21 October 1981, Boerner Papers; LaVerne McDowell, “Sen. Urges Protest of Reaganomics,” CS, 12 November 1981, p. 1; DJG interviews with Phil Boerner, Pern Beckman, and Ron Sunshine; Dorothy Boerner to Phil Boerner, 1 November 1981, Boerner diary entry, 16 November 1981, Boerner to Karen McCraw, 5 and 15 December 1981, Boerner to grandparents, 28 December 1981, Boerner diary entries, 20, 21, and 22 January 1982, Boerner to Karen McCraw, 23 January 1982, Boerner diary entries, 24, 29, and 30 (2) January and 1, 5, and 6 February 1982, Boerner to McCraw, 7 February 1982, Boerner diary entries, 12 and 13 February 1982, Boerner to McCraw, 2 April 1982, Boerner Papers; Cathie M. Currie, “A Columbia Classmate Remembers Obama,” FactCheck.org, 23 February 2010. On Ndaba/Gulabe, see Susan Benesch, “Fighting for Divestment: David Ndaba of the African National Congress,” CS, 25 May 1983, p. 3; Bill Cecil, “George Harrison,” Workers World, 4 November 2004; and William Minter’s 2004 interview with Jennifer Davis. Neither Boerner nor Obama recorded or remember Ron’s last name, and his identity remains unknown. In mid-February 1982 Phil Boerner jotted down that Barack’s studio was in a building numbered 932 and that his phone number was 866-4417. Neither Obama’s name nor that number appear in the 1982 Cole’s Cross Reference Directory for Manhattan, but Boerner’s reference to a nearby record store strongly suggests that Obama’s studio apartment was at 932 Amsterdam Avenue rather than 932 Columbus Avenue. No fewer than three record stores—at 906, 963, and 964—were located very close to the Amsterdam building.

  26. Obama, DFMF, pp. 4, 119–27; Obama’s 2001 interview with Julieanna Richardson; Kenneth Meeks, “Favorite Son,” Black Enterprise, October 2004, pp. 88–95; Shica Boss-Bicak, “Barack Obama ’83: Is He the New Face of the Democratic Party?,” Columbia College Today, January 2005; David Saltonstall and Michael Saul, “Obama: Oh Boy, the Rent!” NYDN, 8 November 2005; Obama in Jacob Weisberg, “The Path to Power,” Men’s Vogue, September 2006, pp. 218–23; Mendell, Obama, pp. 16, 59, 62; Maya in Jennifer Steinhauer, “Charisma and a Search for Self,” NYT, 17 March 2007, p. A1; Jeff Chang, “Maya Soetoro Ng: Q&A,” Vibe, September 2007; Susan Page, “Obama Is Still Seeking Traction,” USA Today, 2 October 2007, p. 1A; Jennifer 8. Lee, “Where Obama Lived in 1980s New York,” NYT Cityroom blog, 30 January 2008; Todd Purdum, “Raising Obama,” Vanity Fair, March 2008; Wolffe et al., “When Barry Became Barack,” Newsweek, 31 March 2008, pp. 24ff.; Lisa Miller and Wolffe, “Finding His Faith,” Newsweek, 21 July 2008, pp. 26ff.; Wolffe, Renegade, pp. 30–31; “Barack Obama Revealed,” CNN, 20 August 2008; Obama in Remnick, The Bridge, p. 114; Siddiqi in Goldman and Tanner, “Old Friends Recall Obama’s Years in L.A., N.Y.”; Michael Daly, “Young Barack Obama Came to the City to Find Himself,” NYDN, 11 November 2008; Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Obama Conveys Principle to Students,” NYT, 8 June 2010; Siddiqi interview with Jim Gilmore; Maraniss, BOTS, p. 444; Scott, A Singular Woman, p. 254; DJG interviews with Andy Roth and Mahboob Mahmood; Mahboob Mahmood, “Readings with Barack,” 30 September 2008. Cole’s Cross Reference Directory for Manhattan, 1983, p. 765, and 1984, p. 771, confirm “B Obama 410-2857” at 339 East 94th with that phone number beginning in 1982. Lynn Sweet, “The Obama We Don’t Know,” CST, 19 July 2008, contains factual errors and asserts secondhand that “one summer Obama worked for a private company holding a contract to process health records” for city employees and also “was a telemarketer in midtown Manhattan selling New York Times subscriptions over the phone, wearing a headset.” Obama himself has never mentioned either such job, nor has he ever referenced the construction site job in any extemporaneous remarks.

  27. DJG interviews with Andy Roth and Alex McNear.

  28. Phil Boerner to Karen McCraw, 31 August 1982, Boerner Papers; Columbia University Bulletin 1981–83, pp. 2–8, 191–93, Columbia College, Courses of Instruction 1982–83, esp. pp. 38, 85, 90, Columbia Archives; Warwick Daw in Columbia College Today, January–February 2009, p. 61, and in Maraniss, BOTS, p. 456; DJG interviews with Michael Ackerman, Pern Beckman, Phil Boerner, Robert Y. Shapiro, Michael Baron, William Araiza, and Jeremy Feinberg; Michael Waldman, “The Question of Edward Said,” CS, 4 March 1982, pp. B6–B7, B9; Michael L. Baron, “Tug of War: The Battle over American Policy Toward China, 1946–49,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University 1980; Maurice Possley, “Activism Blossomed in College,” CT, 30 March 2007; Janny Scott, “Obama’s Account of New York Years Often Differs from What Others Say,” NYT, 30 October 2007, p. B1; Baron in Naftali Bendavid, ed., Obama: The Essential Guide to the Democratic Nominee (Triumph Books, 2008), p. 36, in Jim Popkin, “Obama and the Case of the Missing Thesis,” MSNBC, 24 July 2008, in Betsy Morais, “After Long Absence, Obama, CC ’83, Speaks at Alma Mater,” CS, 11 September 2008; William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “Obama’s Youthful Ideals Shaped the Long Arc of His Nuclear-Free Vision,” NYT, 5 July 2009, p. A1; “Gerald Feinberg, 58, Physicist; Taught at Columbia University,” NYT, 23 April 1992; Gerald Feinberg, What Is the World Made of? Atoms, Leptons, Quarks, and Other Tantalizing Particles (Doubleday, 1977), esp. pp. xii, xiii, xv; Gerald Feinberg, Elementary Physics 1002Y Syllabus, Spring 1991, Feinberg Papers. Per the latter, Feinberg in 1982 may well also have assigned some portions of Robert H. March, Physics for Poets, 2nd ed. (McGraw-Hill, 1978).

  29. Barack Obama to Alex McNear, 26 September 1982, McNear Papers; DJG interviews with Alex McNear and Jeremy Feinberg; Anatole Broyard, “Revising the Heroine,” NYT, 11 September 1982.

  30. Gerald Feinberg, “Physics C1001X, First Exam,” 12 October 1982, Feinberg Papers; DJG interview with Gregory Poe (“physics for poets was a famous gut”); Aaron Freiwald, “South African: Americans Should Denounce Apartheid,” CS, 3 November 1982, p. 2; Cynthia Gelper, “Book, Students Say CC Could Be Better for Blacks,” CS, 19 November 1982, pp. 1, 7; Barack Obama to Alex McNear, 20 November 1982, McNear Papers; Friedrich Nietzsche, Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Modern Library, 1992), p. 229.

  31. Obama, DFMF, pp. 3–5, 114, 127–28; Scott, A Singular Woman, p. 256; William Onyango, “Economic Planning Man Dies in Crash,” Nairobi Times, 30 November 1982, p. 5; DJG interviews with Zeituni Onyango, Pake Zane, and Alba De Souza; Philip Ochieng, “From Home Squared to the U.S. Senate,” Nation, 1 November 2004; Edmund Sanders, “Obama Not Quite His Father’s Son,” LAT, 17 July 2008 (“I can’t stand it” and “unrecognizable”); Zane in Maraniss, “Though Obama Had to Leave to Find Himself,” WP Magazine, 24 August 2008; Kenneth Ogosia and Michael Mugwang’a, “New Links in Dreams From Obama’s Father,” Nation, 25 August 2008; Zane in Sally Jacobs, “A Father’s Charm, Absence,” BG, 21 September 2008; Jo
e Ombuor, “Obama’s Father and the Origin of the Muslim Name,” Standard, 4 November 2008; John Oywa and George Olwenya, “Obama’s Dad and His Many Loves,” Standard, 14 November 2008 (referencing Sebastian Peter Okoda); Jenn Jagire, “Keziah: First and Last [sic] Wife of Obama Sr.,” New Vision (Uganda), 2 January 2009; Zane in Remnick, The Bridge, pp. 67–68; Mark Obama Ndesandjo, Nairobi to Shenzhen, pp. 6, 174; William Foreman (AP), “Obama’s Half-Brother Recalls Their Abusive Father,” 3 November 2009; Andrew Jacobs, “An Obama Relative Living in China Tells of His Own Journey of Self-Discovery,” NYT, 4 November 2009; Keith Richburg, “Obama Half Brother Steps Into Spotlight,” WP, 5 November 2009; David Eimer, “Our Alcoholic Father Beat Me,” Telegraph, 14 November 2009; Tristan McConnell and Andrew Rice, “The Obama Diaspora,” NY Magazine, 23 November 2009; Zeituni Onyango, Tears of Abuse, esp. pp. 39, 41–42, 90–91, 101, 217, 275, 283; Auma Obama, And Then Life Happens, esp. pp. 55, 58, 62, 68, 82, 89, 119–20, 131–35; Ndesandjo, An Obama’s Journey, pp. 33, 44, 51, 59; Abon’go Malik Obama, Barack Obama Sr., esp. pp. 258–59, 265, 28, 325 (noting with regard to Zeituni that “the bond that existed between the two was extraordinary”), 373; Firstbrook, The Obamas, pp. 225–32, 247; Jacobs, The Other Barack, esp. pp. 210, 227, 230, 235–43, 247–54; Maraniss, BOTS, pp. 277–78, 414. Multiple sources state that Hussein Onyango died in 1979, not 1975, but the three who knew best—Zeituni Onyango, Abon’go Malik Obama, and the very thorough Peter Firstbrook—all convincingly agree upon 1975. Likewise, some later sources offer differing exact dates for Obama Sr.’s death, but the most contemporaneous source, the November 30, 1982, Nairobi Times story, is on balance the most likely to be correct.