President Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., was once categorized as “Anti-American” and “Anti-white” for being associated with the America by the African American Students Foundation while in Kenya.
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According to the documents released by the National Archives in West London, fears were expressed about Obama’s father, who was categorized with others as ‘anti-American and anti-white’ when he moved to the United States in 1959.
Obama Sr. had grown up in Kenya under British rule and aroused the fears of both colonial officers and American officials when he won a chance to study in Hawaii. The officials felt Kenyan students were ‘academically inferior’ with a ‘bad reputation’ for turning anti-American.
A memo from a British diplomat in Washington released today by the National Archives in West London revealed their concerns about the young Kenyans from the 1960s.
The memo dated September 1, 1959, says:
“I have discussed with the State Department. They are as disturbed about these developments as we are. They point out that Kenya students have a bad reputation over here for falling into the wrong hands and for becoming both anti-American and anti-white.”
At 23, Obama Sr. enrolled at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu to study economics where he met Ann Dunham, a 17-year-old Kansas native.
The couple had a short marriage that led to the birth in 1961 of the future president, Barack Obama II.
Obama Sr. was among 100 or so Kenyan students brought to America by the African American Students Foundation in the 1960s.
U.S. and British officials were suspicious of the AASF students and was warned of their motives says a letter from the British Embassy in Washington:
“The motives behind this enterprise, therefore, seem more political than educational. The arrival here of these students, many of them of indifferent academic caliber and ill-prepared for the venture, is likely to give rise to difficult problems.”
Obama Sr. died in 1982, but after leaving Hawaii he took a PhD in economics at Harvard and later became a senior economist with the Kenyan government.
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