Latest on Selma story: Obama lied again
Obama lied and also overstated the Kennedys’ aid to his father
Source :LATimesÂ
WASHINGTON — Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his “very existence” to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother.
The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. It is a touching story — but key details are either untrue or grossly oversimplified.
Contrary to references by Obama in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama’s father.
According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton acknowledged Saturday that the senator from Illinois had erred in crediting the Kennedy family with a role in his father’s arrival in the United States. He said the Kennedy involvement in the Kenya student program apparently “started 48 years ago, not 49 years ago as Obama has mistakenly suggested in the past.”
The real story of Barack Obama Sr.’s arrival in the United States and the subsequent Kennedy involvement in the airlifts of African students sheds light on the highly competitive presidential election of 1960 and Africa’s struggle to free itself from colonialism, as well as the huge strides made by the Obama family.
A more accurate version would begin not with the Kennedys but with a Kenyan nationalist leader named Tom Mboya, who traveled to the United States in 1959 and 1960 to gain support for his efforts to educate a new African elite.
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