THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book review
SOURCE: BY BENJAMIN D. BERRY
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
WE MIGHT legitimately ask how a person who has lived so few years presumes to present such a lengthy autobiography as Barack Obama's ``Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance'' (Random House/Times Books, 403 pp., $23). It seems only yesterday that news of Obama's selection as editor of The Harvard Law Review - the first African-American to hold that post - was in the press. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991, and that was, indeed, just yesterday.
Early in ``Dreams From My Father,'' however, it becomes obvious that this is a story involving several generations and touching life on several continents rather than simply one short life. Obama's search for his identity speaks to the quest that confronts many Americans, especially African-Americans, who must live in a society in which race is a major identifying factor.
In such a society, Obama, the son of a white American woman and a black African man, is a perfect example of a person labeled by sociologist Everett Stonequist as ``marginal'': He is both black and white, but at the same time, he is neither. He is, in the words of the theological giant Howard Thurmon, at home nowhere because he is not at home somewhere.
``Dreams From My Father'' is the story of Barack's search for the African side of his heritage. Barry (his nickname throughout the book) was reared in Hawaii, where his parents met, fell in love and married. He begins his tale with the death of the elder Obama, a Kenyan who left the family when Barry was only 2. It is with the death of a father whom he does not know but from whom he cannot escape that Barry's search begins.
Moving to Chicago after college, Obama works as a community organizer in city housing projects. He becomes one with the people, with their struggles to rear children and live in the midst of poverty and violence. He wrestles with the inconsistencies of black Chicago: the politics that elected Harold Washington and then fell apart upon his death; the self-serving black nationalists; the pot-smoking church deacons. Through of this he gets in touch with the black side of his identity for the first time.
After deciding to enter law school and gaining admission to Harvard, he goes to Kenya to meet the family of ``the Old Man,'' as the elder Obama is now called by his children. Obama does not romanticize Africa as have so many writers in recent memory. Rather he uncovers the brutal truth about the ``Old Man,'' the poverty of Kenya and the family strife over an inheritance that is not really there. As a result, he is able to return to the United States, enter Harvard and graduate from that citadel of whiteness while holding firmly to his identity.
This is a book that should be read by all who have an interest in the role of race in American life. It needs to be on the reading lists of African-Americans who strive to enter the mainstream of a society that is still divided by race, their parents, and whites who wish to welcome them. Obama shows wisdom well beyond his years and tells each of us, black and white, something about ourselves. MEMO: Benjamin D. Berry Jr. is a professor of history and American studies at
Virginia Wesleyan College. by CNB