Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Jul 31, 2008

The Post Chronicle

In a strange development, supporters of Barack Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, are openly debating the nature and depth of Davis’s commitment to the Communist Party and his relationship with the Democratic candidate. The debate has gotten heated.

This unusual debate, which is taking place on Obama’s official website, raises the question once again as to why Obama has not been asked by the major media about this relationship. Davis was identified as a Communist Party member by various investigative committees and acknowledged his party membership in a private letter obtained by John Edgar Tidwell, who was sympathetic to Davis and edited his books.

On one side of this debate is somebody claiming to be the son of Davis. On the other side is Alan Maki, a political activist and union organizer with a long history of involvement in left-wing causes. Indeed, Maki confirms that he has been a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a communist decades ago when he was in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Although he doesn’t support Obama because of his ties to Big Business, Maki wrote a blog on the Obama website stating that he was grateful to Obama for bringing Davis to his attention, and that he, Maki, regarded Davis as his mentor, too. Maki announced the establishment of a “Frank Marshall Davis Roundtable for Change” and invited Obama supporters to join it.

Maki did his homework, which is more than most of our own media have done, and he obtained Davis’s books. It is absolutely clear, Maki stated, that Davis was a communist.

In his 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, Obama cites “Frank” as someone who gave him advice on various matters, including race, American values, and college, and read poems to him during his high-school years in Hawaii. One of Davis’s poems was a tribute to the Soviet Red Army. Another mocked the work of Christian missionaries.

New Zealand blogger Trevor Loudon was the first to alert people to the fact that “Frank” was identified as Frank Marshall Davis, a controversial black writer and poet, by Gerald Horne, a writer for a CPUSA publication. Davis’s influence over Obama could help explain why the candidate associated with communists, socialists and anti-American figures through college and his political life in Chicago.

Maki says his intention is to use Davis’s writings “to advance the unity of working people to be a voice to be reckoned with by the Obama Administration, which to me, at this point, looks like will be an overwhelming landslide victory over the Republicans.”

Communist-style Change

Into the picture comes the person claiming to be the son of Frank Marshall Davis, who posted some comments on the Obama website in which he expresses the view that Maki and I are somehow in cahoots because Maki agreed to talk to me about his views on communism and Obama.

While Maki doesn’t personally like my conservative views, he was honest and forthright about his own political beliefs. Maki posts his telephone number, is easy to reach, and doesn’t hide his political affiliation. And since I reported the results of these conversations, the person calling himself Mark Davis says Maki and I have become “strange bedfellows” and involved in some kind of alliance against Obama.

This would be amusing were it not for the fact that this Mark Davis figure seems determined to obscure the truth and tries to publish this information on various Internet sites. Mark Davis has even posted comments on the misnamed “Intellectual Conservative” website, after somebody named Bob Stapler claimed it was a “delusion” on my part to think that a communist named Frank Marshall Davis had any impact on Obama. Stapler, who claims to be a conservative, refused to correct the record after several requests and appeals for him to examine the factual evidence in the Davis matter.

Sounding authoritative, this Mark Davis character has declared that Frank Marshall Davis “was not a communist,” was not Obama’s “mentor,” and that his influence over Obama has been “exaggerated.” However, he does contend that Obama did have “respect for Davis’s social insight” and showed “good will” toward him. Coming from someone claiming to be Davis’s son, these assertions might appear to hold some weight.

It is important to note that there is no denial that “Frank” was Frank Marshall Davis. The main question, it seems, is how much influence he exerted over Obama, and how much of a card-carrying communist he actually was.

Lately, this same “Mark” has gone further, appearing to embrace suggestions that it is somehow “defamation” to accuse Davis of being a communist, even though reports from various committees and investigations identified him as such and Davis admitted it in the private letter cited by Tidwell. This is apparently a tactic to try to prevent people from delving too deeply into the Obama-Davis relationship.

More investigations must and will be done, not only in regard to Davis but also those in Hawaii and elsewhere who continue to cover up for him. Indeed, the attacks on AIM for publicizing the Obama-Davis link appear designed to protect associates of Davis from scrutiny. If this is the intention, the tactic has backfired.

AIM is vowing to publish more information about Davis and his supporters.

Tell the Truth

Clearly, there is an effort underway to sanitize or play down the Obama-Davis relationship and try to intimidate the major media into not covering it. But it is unusual, to say the least, that some of this effort is occurring on the official Obama website. The reaction, which makes the controversy even more newsworthy and significant, suggests that the truth is seeping out through other means, mostly in the alternative media, and increasing the pressure at least on Obama’s supporters to deal with the matter.

In another strange twist, Mark Davis claims some of his comments have been taken off the Obama website, but some freely remain) (see comment 37) on the AIM website, which is open to a variety of views in the form of comments on posted columns. Some Davis comments were apparently deleted from the Obama website on the ground that they were “part of a racist, anti-Semitic hate campaign” against Maki. Davis insists they were not of that nature.

Eventually, if this controversy about Frank Marshall Davis continues to build, Obama could be personally forced by the media to respond, in the same way that former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro had to hold a full-blown press conference to answer questions about her husband’s alleged Mob connections.

Maki thinks it admirable that Davis was a communist, but the odds are that few Americans would agree with him.

It is a problem not only for Obama and his campaign, but for those who associated with and covered up for Davis.

If Mark Davis is truly Davis’s son, one would think he would know the truth and have inside information about his father. His thin “profile” on the Obama website claims he is an Obama supporter but not registered to vote. It’s difficult, of course, to determine a true identity based on the limited information available about this person on the Internet. But it is Obama’s website and should be taken somewhat seriously. Maki has reported that he got a telephone call from the “real” Mark Davis, suggesting the one posting comments supposedly in defense of Davis is somebody else.

In any case, Maki is rightly perplexed by the claims that Davis was not a communist, noting that Davis’s own books frankly explore his communist views.

“Let me get this straight,” Maki told Davis, “you are disowning everything Frank Marshall Davis wrote. Who cares about the use of the term ‘mentor?’ Look in any dictionary, you are quibbling about terms that mean the same no matter who uses them…How come you haven’t taken issue with the editor of the books, John Edgar Tidwell and the Publishers, University of Wisconsin Press and University Press of Mississippi. I think you should contact the editor and publishers and have them either stand behind what has been written or disown it…as you are fully aware, IF YOU HAVE EVER READ either of the two books, the only thing I have done is quote the books and say the same thing the editor has stated.”

Maki was referring to Livin’ the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet, as well as The Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice Of the Black Press. Tidwell, the editor referred to by Maki, has to be taken seriously.

In fact, in Livin’ the Blues, Davis charges black writer Richard Wright with “treason” for leaving and exposing the CPUSA. This is the mark of a hard-core communist.

“Out of curiosity,” says Maki to Mark Davis, “do you think Karl Marx was a Communist?”

Red and Proud

Maki declared that “If there is one thing Frank Marshall Davis makes clear is that he had the utmost respect for Communists because of the way Communists fight for the rights of working people and against racism. Frank Marshall Davis was entitled to his political views - there is no doubt he joined the ranks of members of the Communist Party USA along with his very good friends Benjamin Davis and Paul Robeson…for you to deny this is cowardly, shameful and disgusting.”