{"id":47786,"date":"2016-06-19T00:16:31","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T00:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=47786"},"modified":"2016-06-19T17:13:33","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T17:13:33","slug":"words-of-obamas-father-still-waiting-to-be-read-by-his-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=47786","title":{"rendered":"Words of Obama\u2019s Father Still Waiting to Be Read by His Son"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words of Obama\u2019s Father Still Waiting to Be Read by His Son<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2016-06-18<\/p>\n

Rachel L. Swarns<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nFamily portraits, including one of President Barack Obama\u2019s<\/a> father, center, hang in his family\u2019s house in Kogelo<\/a>, western Kenya<\/a>, in 2008. Credit Peter Macdiarmid\/Getty Images<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Letters written long ago by Barack Obama Sr.<\/a> shed new light on a young Kenyan whose ambitions helped change the course of U.S. history. But for the president, they may also revive old pain.<\/em><\/p>\n

The archivist stumbled across the file in a stack of boxes on the second floor of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture<\/a> in Harlem<\/a>. The yellowing letters inside dated back more than half a century, chronicling the dreams and struggles of a young man in Kenya<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He was ambitious and impetuous, a 22-year-old clerk who could type 75 words a minute and translate English into Swahili<\/a>. But he had no money for college. So he pounded away on a typewriter in Nairobi<\/a>, pleading for financial aid from universities and foundations across the Atlantic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His letters would help change the course of American history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been my long cherished ambition to further my studies in America,\u201d he wrote in 1958<\/a>. His name was Barack Hussein Obama<\/a>, and his dispatches helped unleash a stream of scholarship money that carried him from Kenya to the United States. There, he fathered the child who would become the nation\u2019s first black president<\/a>, only to vanish from his son\u2019s life a few years after his birth…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Words of Obama\u2019s Father Still Waiting to Be Read by His Son The New York Times 2016-06-18 Rachel L. Swarns Family portraits, including one of President Barack Obama\u2019s father, center, hang in his family\u2019s house in Kogelo, western Kenya, in 2008. Credit Peter Macdiarmid\/Getty Images Letters written long ago by Barack Obama Sr. shed new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,63,1245,8,20],"tags":[24221,12821,2640,2880,9343,24222,2327],"class_list":["post-47786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-barack-obama-sr","tag-kenya","tag-new-york-times","tag-rachel-l-swarns","tag-rachel-swarns","tag-schomburg-center-for-research-in-black-culture","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47786"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47790,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47786\/revisions\/47790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}