What happened in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham also stirred the conscience of the nation. It worried folks in the White House who said, "You know, we're battling Communism. How are we going to win hearts and minds all across the world? If right here in our own country, John, we're not observing the ideals set fort in our Constitution, we might be accused of being hypocrites." So the Kennedys decided we're going to do an air lift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.
This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama."
--Barack Obama, 40th anniversary of Selma civil rights march, March 4, 2007.
A reader, Gregory Gelembiuk of the University of Wisconsin, thought there was something strange about the story told by Barack Obama in his Selma speech last year, and asked me to look into it. Obama made similar comments at American University in January when he was endorsed by Ted and Caroline Kennedy.
Gelembiuk pointed out that the senator's father, Barack Obama Sr., came to the United States to attend the University of Hawaii in 1959. But a Kennedy memo available on the Internet appears to show that the Kennedy family only became involved in the program in July 1960. So how could Obama credit the Kennedy family for bringing his father over to America? |
