Letters Point To 'Obama's Real Father'

New research by Joel Gilbert into Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis’ seedy history in Hawaii has bolstered the filmmaker’s theory that Davis was the biological father of Barack Obama.

Gilbert has uncovered handwritten letters by Davis that strongly suggest the acknowledged Obama mentor’s pornographic sex novel “Sex Rebel: Black” was based on Davis’ personal life.

Davis refers to the 1968 book as his “thoroughly erotic autobiography” in a letter to Margaret Burroughs, the well-known African-American artist, whose steamy affair with him, Davis explains, was included in the novel.

Joel Gilbert’s documentary, “Dreams from My Real Father,” is available at WND’s Superstore

Burroughs, a former Chicago Park District commissioner, co-founded the DuSable Museum of African American History in 1961. The museum serves today as the current depository of an important collection of Davis letters and manuscripts.

New research by Gilbert has also established that the Davis residence at 2994 Kalihi Street in Honolulu had a seedy past in the sex trade, dating back to the early 1950s, when Davis first moved into the house.

WND has previously reported Gilbert argues in his full-length documentary “Dreams from My Real Father: A Story of Reds and Deception” that Davis, the radical poet and journalist who moved from Chicago to Hawaii in the 1940s, is the biological and ideological father of Barack Obama, not the Kenyan Barack Obama, who came from Africa in 1959 to attend the University of Hawaii.

As WND has also reported Gilbert believes 2994 Kalihi Street was the location where Davis took a series of nude photographs of a teenage Ann Dunham, the future mother of Barack Obama.

As documented by political scientist Paul Kengor’s book, “The Communist,” published in July, Davis was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of the USA.

The Burroughs letters

Archivists at the DuSable identified for Gilbert two handwritten letters Davis wrote to Burroughs, one dated Nov. 1, 1968, and the other Oct. 27, 1982, seen in their entirety here, in both the handwritten originals and transcribed.

In the 1968 letter, Davis admits to Burroughs that he is the author of “Sex Rebel: Black,” published that year by Greenleaf Classics in San Diego under the pen name Bob Greene.

In the second paragraph of the 1968 letter, Davis explains to Burroughs not only that he is the author of the book, but that their sexual relationship in Chicago dating back to the 1940s was the basis for the fictional character Flo, introduced into the novel at page 109.

Davis wrote:

Incidentally, my thoroughly erotic autobiography appeared in July. It’s SEX REBEL: BLACK and was brought out by Greenleaf Classics in San Diego. Because it’s what some people call pornography, (I call it erotic realism) it may not be available at more conservative book stores. The author is ‘Bob Greene’ and in it you are ‘Flo.’ I have tried to be honest although I changed names and some descriptions, etc. You will find out things about me sexually you probably never suspected – but in this wider acceptance of sexual attitudes I can be far more frank than was possible 20 years ago.

If you get a chance to read SEX REBEL I hope you will be pleased with the portrait of yourself. You were and are a very unique and remarkable woman and for the first time you will learn of the confusion in my mind about you and Helen and what I really wanted but could not have because of the nature of our society. Today – or if attitudes had been different then – I would have handled it differently. The only fiction is in the last part of SEX REBEL where I am supposedly in California. And, incidentally, to keep the record straight, I’m still swinging and have quite a list of correspondents, some of whom I hope to see next year.

The Helen mentioned in the letter is a reference to Helen Canfield, a white Chicago socialite who was also a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of the USA.

When Davis and Canfield wed in 1946, Canfield was 23 years old, 18 years younger than Davis; Davis and Canfield divorced in 1970, and Canfield died in 1998.

Life-based pornography?

“This letter establishes clearly that the pornographic novel Davis wrote was autobiographical in nature and based on sexual relations and events that actually occurred in his life,” Gilbert told WND. “Without documentation like this, determining what is true and what is autobiographical fiction remains problematic.”

Gilbert has argued that the affair Davis describes in “Sex Rebel: Black” involving an underage girl named “Anne” is very suggestive of Stanley Ann Dunham.

In a compilation of Davis poems published in the book “Black Moods,” compiled by his biographer, University of Kansas English Professor John Edgar Tidwell, are 37 “portraits” grouped in a section subtitled “Horizontal Cameos.” Each poem is dedicated to a different woman identified by her first name only. The second of these is dedicated to “Anne,” reading as follows:

Anne

In the gangling hours Thin, adolescent hours Before night runs softly Away into the west Anne rises wearily From her tired bed And sleeps Sitting in a chair.

“If ‘Flo’ was based on Margaret Burroughs,” Gilbert argues, “then I consider it very possible the character of ‘Anne’ is based on Ann Dunham.”

The 1982 letter confirms his propensity for underage sexual relationships. Then 76 years old, Davis provides details to Burroughs of a sexual relationship he was then having with an underage girl in Hawaii.

In the penultimate paragraph of the letter, Davis bragged to Burroughs about his affair:

“Currently my No. 1 woman here is a gorgeous and sexy girl with a face like Brooke Shields who became 17 two weeks ago today. But girls here develop early and rapidly. I have had my eye on her since I first saw her at 13. I knew she would be a mind blower. I didn’t see her again until March of this year and then things began. We had a real wild time for 6 ½ months despite her youth. It has now calmed down but we still maintain a ‘working’ relationship. This girl is Hawaii, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Irish.”

Ann Dunham, born Nov. 29, 1942, was 18 years old when Barack Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961.

Davis remained close to Burroughs

The 1982 letter Davis penned to Burroughs documents that Davis remained on close, friendly terms with her, decades after he moved from Chicago and their sexual relationship had ended.

In the 1982 letter, Davis acknowledges that Burroughs had asked him to send her some new poems, writing as follows:

“At last we have something again on which we can cooperate. Of course I’ll send 10 poems with the essential information by your deadline of Dec 30th. However experience has taught me to expect little in the area of royalties so I won’t expect much. But I do hope we will all be surprised.”

In his autobiography “Livin’ the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet,” Davis discussed on Page 341 his continuing relationship with Burroughs.

Writing about a project to republish a collection of his poems for use in black studies programs at the college level, Davis recounted the following:

“The groundwork was laid in March of 1972 when an old friend, Dr. Margaret Goss Burroughs, curator of the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago and herself a talented writer and artist, visited Honolulu with her husband, Charles, and sister, Marion. I had known Margaret since 1940 when I was director of public relations for the first National Negro Exposition at the Chicago Coliseum. She asked if I would consider appearing in Chicago to read my poetry. This thought had never crossed my mind.”

Gilbert pointed out that even when his relationships with women began with a sexual relationship, Davis tended to keep friendships with these women and their families for decades after the sexual relationship ended.

In his documentary, Gilbert shows that Ann Dunham gave her father, the “Gramps” of Obama’s autobiography “Dreams From My Father,” instructions to make sure young Barry would be taken regularly to visit Davis. “Obama chronicles his childhood interaction with Davis in his autobiography by mentioning ‘Frank’ 25 times, the only person Obama refers to by using his real first name instead of a completely fabricated pseudonym” Gilbert stressed.

“In addition, the neighbors of Frank Marshall Davis have said Obama began visiting Davis every week regularly at his home on Kalihi Street from the time Obama was 10 years old. Why?” Gilbert asks. Gilbert, noting Dunham “engaged in nefarious activities with Davis, who was likely involved in pornography and prostitution,” asked “why would she bring 10 year-old Barry back from Indonesia and tell her father something to the effect of, ‘I’m going back to Indonesia, but please take young Barry to Frank’s house a few times a week.’”

“The only scenario where Obama’s regular visits as a child to Frank’s house makes sense is if Davis was the real biological father,” Gilbert asserts.

2994 Kalihi Street

In his many research trips to Hawaii, Gilbert has interviewed several retired Honolulu Police Department detectives who worked in Hawaii in the 1950 and 1960s, including a former assistant police chief.

He also gained access to photos from the Honolulu Police Department archives.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the 2994 Kalihi Street address was a four-story residence with a seedy past in the sex trade in Hawaii.

Gilbert believes Davis lived on the lower two floors, which had separate entrances and utility bills, while the Negro Elks Clubhouse was operated on the upper two floors.

As seen in Exhibit 2, Gilbert obtained a photograph from the Honolulu police archives that documents a vice raid conducted on the Negro Elks Clubhouse at 2994 Kahili Street, before Davis rented the house.

The HPD photograph shows black servicemen being led out of the Waikiki Lodge of the Negro Elks Clubhouse with a uniformed Navy MP with a camera and a flashlight in a joint HPD and military police vice raid conducted Dec. 20, 1952.

The Honolulu Advertiser reported at the time that the club was closed for being a “disorderly house” and for “selling liquor without a license.”

“The photo documents that the Kalihi Street address was notorious before Davis moved there,” Gilbert told WND.

“Davis fit right in,” he said. “He was a poet who used drugs, wrote about jazz music and lived a Bohemian life-style, starting various small businesses that all seemed to fail and struggling to make ends meet.”

Gilbert argued that 2994 Kalihi Street, a Tudor-style house built in the then-countryside, was a perfect residence for Davis to rent.

“In the 1950s and 1960s, Kalihi Street was in a valley that was not densely populated, deep in the Honolulu foothills, that had long been associated with vice, including drugs and the sex trade,” Gilbert said. “In the 1960s, the valley was considered a hangout for Beat Generation poets and then hippies, again associated with drugs and sex.”

As seen in Exhibit 3, Gilbert has added a “Breaking News” page to the website for his documentary, “Dreams from My Real Father.”