Barack Obama Dreams from My Father

and splintered; the reddish carpet gave off a musty, damp odor; and at various points the floorboards

beneath bucked and dipped like welts in a meadow. Reverend Philips’s office had this same chipped, worn

quality, lit only by an antique desk lamp that cast the room in a dull, amber glow. And Reverend Philips

himself-he was old. With the window shades drawn, surrounded by stacks of dusty old books, he seemed

now to be receding into the wall, as still as a portrait, only his snow-white hair clearly visible, his voice

sonorous and disembodied, like the voice of a dream.

We had been talking for close to an hour, mostly about the church. Not his church so much as the

church, the historically black church, the church as an institution, the church as an idea. He was an erudite

man and began our conversation with a history of slave religion, telling me about the Africans who, newly

landed on hostile shores, had sat circled around a fire mixing newfound myths with ancient rhythms, their

songs becoming a vessel for those most radical of ideas-survival, and freedom, and hope. The reverend

went on to recall the Southern church of his own youth, a small, whitewashed wooden place, he said, built

with sweat and pennies saved from share-cropping, where on bright, hot Sunday mornings all the quiet

terror and open wounds of the week drained away in tears and shouts of gratitude; the clapping, waving,

fanning hands reddening the embers of those same stubborn ideas-survival, and freedom, and hope. He

discussed Martin Luther King’s visit to Chicago and the jealousy he had witnessed among some of King’s

fellow ministers, their fear of being usurped; and the emergence of the Muslims, whose anger Reverend

Philips understood: It was his own anger, he said, an anger that he didn’t expect he would ever entirely

escape but that through prayer he had learned to control-and that he had tried not to pass down to his

children.

Now he was explaining the history of churches in Chicago. There were thousands of them, and it

seemed as if he knew them all: the tiny storefronts and the large stone edifices; the high-yella

congregations that sat stiff as cadets as they sang from their stern hymnals, and the charismatics who

shook as their bodies expelled God’s unintelligible tongue. Most of the larger churches in Chicago had been

a blend of these two forms, Reverend Philips explained, an example of segregation’s hidden blessings, the

way it forced the lawyer and the doctor to live and worship right next to the maid and the laborer. Like a

great pumping heart, the church had circulated goods, information, values, and ideas back and forth and

back again, between rich and poor, learned and unlearned, sinner and saved.

He wasn’t sure, he said, how much longer his church would continue to serve that function. Most of his

better-off members had moved away to tidier neighborhoods, suburban life. They still drove back every

Sunday, out of loyalty or habit. But the nature of their involvement had changed. They hesitated to volunteer

for anything-a tutoring program, a home visitation-that might keep them in the city after dark. They wanted

more security around the church, a fenced-in parking lot to protect their cars. Reverend Philips expected

that once he passed on, many of those members would stop coming back. They would start new churches,

tidy like their new streets. He feared that the link to the past would be finally broken, that the children would

no longer retain the memory of that first circle, around a fire….

His voice began to trail off; I felt he was getting tired. I asked him for introductions to other pastors who

might be interested in organizing, and he mentioned a few names-there was a dynamic young pastor, he

said, a Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, who might be worth talking

to; his message seemed to appeal to young people like me. Reverend Philips gave me his number, and as I

got up to leave, I said, “If we could bring just fifty churches together, we might be able to reverse some of

the trends you’ve been talking about.”

Reverend Philips nodded and said, “You may be right, Mr. Obama. You have some interesting ideas.

But you see, the churches around here are used to doing things their own way. Sometimes, the

congregations even more than the pastors.” He opened the door for me, then paused. “By the way, what

church do you belong to?”

“I…I attend different services.”

“But you’re not a member anywhere?”

“Still searching, I guess.”

“Well, I can understand that. It might help your mission if you had a church home, though. It doesn’t

matter where, really. What you’re asking from pastors requires us to set aside some of our more priestly

concerns in favor of prophecy. That requires a good deal of faith on our part. It makes us want to know just

where you’re getting yours from. Faith, that is.”

Outside, I put on my sunglasses and walked past a group of older men who had set out their lawn

chairs on the sidewalk for a game of bid whist. It was a gorgeous day, seventy-five in late September.

Instead of driving straight to my next appointment, I decided to linger, letting my legs hang out the open car

door, watching the old men play their game. They didn’t talk much, these men. They reminded me of the

men Gramps used to play bridge with-the same thick, stiff hands; the same thin, natty socks and improbably

slender shoes; the same beads of sweat along the folds of their necks, just beneath their flat caps. I tried to

remember the names of those men back in Hawaii, what they had done for a living, wondering what residue

of themselves they’d left in me. They had been mysteries to me then, those old black men; that mystery was

part of what had brought me to Chicago. And now, now that I was leaving Chicago, I wondered if I

understood them any better than before.

I hadn’t told anyone except Johnnie about my decision. I figured there would be time for an

announcement later; I wouldn’t even hear back from the law schools until January. Our new youth program

would be up and running by then; I would have raised next year’s budget, hopefully brought in a few more

churches. I had told Johnnie only because I needed to know whether he’d be willing to stay on and take my

place as lead organizer-and maybe, too, because he was my friend and I needed to explain myself. Except

Johnnie hadn’t seen the need for explanations. The minute I told him the schools to which I’d applied-

Harvard, Yale, Stanford-he had grinned and slapped me on the back.

“I knew it!” he shouted.

“Knew what?”

“That it was just a matter of time, Barack. Before you were outta here.”

“Why’d you think that?”

Johnnie shook his head and laughed. “Damn, Barack…’cause you got options, that’s why. ’Cause you

can leave. I mean, I know you’re a conscientious brother and all that, but when somebody’s got a choice

between Harvard and Roseland, it’s only so long somebody’s gonna keep choosing Roseland.” Again he

shook his head. “Harvard! Goddamn. I just hope you remember your friends when you up in that fancy

office downtown.”

For some reason, Johnnie’s laughter had made me defensive. I insisted that I would be coming back to

the neighborhood. I told him that I didn’t plan on being dazzled by the wealth and power that Harvard

represented, and that he shouldn’t be either. Johnnie put his hands up in mock surrender.

“Hey, you don’t need to be telling me all this. I ain’t the one going nowhere.”

I grew quiet, embarrassed by my outburst. “Yeah, well…I’m just saying that I’ll be back, that’s all. I

don’t want you or the leaders to get the wrong idea.”

Johnnie smiled gently. “Ain’t nobody gonna get the wrong idea, Barack. Man, we’re just proud to see

you succeed.”

The sun was now slipping behind a cloud; a couple of the old cardplayers pulled on the windbreakers

they had hung on the backs of their chairs. I lit a cigarette and tried to decipher that conversation with

Johnnie. Had he doubted my intentions? Or was it just me that mistrusted myself? It seemed like I had gone

over my decision at least a hundred times. I needed a break, that was for sure. I wanted to go to Kenya:

Auma was already back in Nairobi, teaching at the university for a year; it would be an ideal time for an

extended visit.

And I had things to learn in law school, things that would help me bring about real change. I would

learn about interest rates, corporate mergers, the legislative process; about the way businesses and banks

were put together; how real estate ventures succeeded or failed. I would learn power’s currency in all its

intricacy and detail, knowledge that would have compromised me before coming to Chicago but that I could

now bring back to where it was needed, back to Roseland, back to Altgeld; bring it back like Promethean

fire.

That’s the story I had been telling myself, the same story I imagined my father telling himself twenty-

believed he was acting out some grand design, that he wasn’t simply fleeing from possible inconsequence.

And, in fact, he had returned to Kenya, hadn’t he? But only as a divided man, his plans, his dreams, soon

turned to dust….

Would the same thing happen to me? Maybe Johnnie was right; maybe once you stripped away the

rationalizations, it always came down to a simple matter of escape. An escape from poverty or boredom or

crime or the shackles of your skin. Maybe, by going to law school, I’d be repeating a pattern that had been

set in motion centuries before, the moment white men, themselves spurred on by their own fears of

inconsequence, had landed on Africa’s shores, bringing with them their guns and blind hunger, to drag

away the conquered in chains. That first encounter had redrawn the map of black life, recentered its

universe, created the very idea of escape-an idea that lived on in Frank and those other old black men who

had found refuge in Hawaii; in green-eyed Joyce back at Occidental, just wanting to be an individual; in

Auma, torn between Germany and Kenya; in Roy, finding out that he couldn’t start over. And here, in the

South Side, among members of Reverend Philips’s church, some of whom had probably marched alongside

Dr. King, believing then that they marched for a higher purpose, for rights and for principles and for all God’s

children, but who at some point had realized that power was unyielding and principles unstable, and that

even after laws were passed and lynchings ceased, the closest thing to freedom would still involve escape,

emotional if not physical, away from ourselves, away from what we knew, flight into the outer reaches of the

white man’s empire-or closer into its bosom.

The analogies weren’t exactly right. The relationship between black and white, the meaning of escape,

would never be quite the same for me as it had been for Frank, or for the Old Man, or even for Roy. And as

segregated as Chicago was, as strained as race relations were, the success of the civil rights movement

had at least created some overlap between communities, more room to maneuver for people like me. I

could work in the black community as an organizer or a lawyer and still live in a high rise downtown. Or the

other way around: I could work in a blue-chip law firm but live in the South Side and buy a big house, drive a

nice car, make my donations to the NAACP and Harold’s campaign, speak at local high schools. A role

model, they’d call me, an example of black male success.

Was there anything wrong with that? Johnnie obviously didn’t think so. He had smiled, I realized now,

not because he judged me but precisely because he didn’t; because he, like my leaders, didn’t see anything

wrong with such success. That was one of the lessons I’d learned these past two and a half years, wasn’t

it?-that most black folks weren’t like the father of my dreams, the man in my mother’s stories, full of high-

blown ideals and quick to pass judgment. They were more like my stepfather, Lolo, practical people who

knew life was too hard to judge each other’s choices, too messy to live according to abstract ideals. No one

expected self-sacrifice from me-not Rafiq, who of late had been pestering me about helping him raise

money from white foundations for his latest scheme; not Reverend Smalls, who had decided to run for the

state senator’s seat and was anxious for our support. As far as they were concerned, my color had always

been a sufficient criterion for community membership, enough of a cross to bear.

Was that all that had brought me to Chicago, I wondered-the desire for such simple acceptance? That

had been part of it, certainly, one meaning to community. But there had been another meaning, too, a more

demanding impulse. Sure, you could be black and still not give a damn about what happened in Altgeld or

Roseland. You didn’t have to care about boys like Kyle, young mothers like Bernadette or Sadie. But to be

right with yourself, to do right by others, to lend meaning to a community’s suffering and take part in its

healing-that required something more. It required the kind of commitment that Dr. Collier made every day

out in Altgeld. It required the kind of sacrifices a man like Asante had been willing to make with his students.

It required faith. I glanced up now at the small, second-story window of the church, imagining the old

pastor inside, drafting his sermon for the week. Where did your faith come from? he had asked. It suddenly

occurred to me that I didn’t have an answer. Perhaps, still, I had faith in myself. But faith in one’s self was

never enough.

I stamped out my cigarette and started the car. I looked into my rearview mirror and, driving off,

watched the old, silent cardplayers recede from my sight.

area, hoping to convince them to join the organization. It was a slow process, for unlike their Catholic

counterparts, most black pastors were fiercely independent, secure in their congregations and with little

obvious need for outside assistance. Whenever I first reached them on the phone, they would often be

suspicious or evasive, uncertain as to why this Muslim-or worse yet, this Irishman, O’Bama-wanted a few

minutes of their time. And a handful I met with conformed to the prototypes found in Richard Wright novels

or Malcolm X speeches: sanctimonious graybeards preaching pie-in-the-sky, or slick Holy Rollers with

flashy cars and a constant eye on the collection plate.

For the most part, though, once I’d had a chance to meet these men face-to-face, I would come away

impressed. As a group, they turned out to be thoughtful, hardworking men, with a confidence, a certainty of

purpose, that made them by far the best organizers in the neighborhood. They were generous with their

time, interested in the issues, surprisingly willing to open themselves to my scrutiny. One minister talked

about a former gambling addiction. Another told me about his years as a successful executive and a secret

drunk. They all mentioned periods of religious doubt; the corruption of the world and their own hearts; the

striking bottom and shattering of pride; and then finally the resurrection of self, a self alloyed to something

larger. That was the source of their confidence, they insisted: their personal fall, their subsequent

redemption. It was what gave them the authority to preach the Good News.

Had I heard the Good News? some of them would ask me.

Do you know where it is that your faith is coming from?

When I asked for other pastors to talk to, several gave me the name of Reverend Wright, the same

minister Reverend Philips had mentioned that day at his church. Younger ministers seemed to regard

Reverend Wright as a mentor of sorts, his church a model for what they themselves hoped to accomplish.

Older pastors were more cautious with their praise, impressed with the rapid growth of Trinity’s

congregation but somewhat scornful of its popularity among young black professionals. (“A buppie church,”

one pastor would tell me.)

Toward the end of October I finally got a chance to pay Reverend Wright a visit and see the church for

myself. It sat flush on Ninety-fifth Street in a mostly residential neighborhood a few blocks down from the

Louden Home projects. I had expected something imposing, but it turned out to be a low, modest structure

of red brick and angular windows, landscaped with evergreens and sculpted shrubs and a small sign spiked

into the grass-FREE SOUTH AFRICA in simple block letters. Inside, the church was cool and murmured

with activity. A group of small children waited to be picked up from day care. A crew of teenage girls passed

by, dressed for what looked like an African dance class. Four elderly women emerged from the sanctuary,

and one of them shouted “God is good!” causing the others to respond giddily “All the time!”

Eventually a pretty woman with a brisk, cheerful manner came up and introduced herself as Tracy, one

of Reverend Wright’s assistants. She said that the reverend was running a few minutes late and asked if I

wanted some coffee. As I followed her back into a kitchen toward the rear of the church, we began to chat,

about the church mostly, but also a little about her. It had been a difficult year, she said: Her husband had

recently died, and in just a few weeks she’d be moving out to the suburbs. She had wrestled long and hard

with the decision, for she had lived most of her life in the city. But she had decided the move would be best

for her teenage son. She began to explain how there were a lot more black families in the suburbs these

days; how her son would be free to walk down the street without getting harassed; how the school he’d be

attending had music courses, a full band, free instruments and uniforms.

“He’s always wanted to be in a band,” she said softly.

As we were talking, I noticed a man in his late forties walking toward us. He had silver hair, a silver

mustache and goatee; he was dressed in a gray three-piece suit. He moved slowly, methodically, as if

conserving energy, sorting through his mail as he walked, humming a simple tune to himself.

“Barack,” he said as if we were old friends, “let’s see if Tracy here will let me have a minute of your

time.”

warned you that Rev likes to act silly sometimes.”

Reverend Wright smiled and led me into a small, cluttered office. “Sorry for being late,” he said, closing

the door behind him. “We’re trying to build a new sanctuary, and I had to meet with the bankers. I’m telling

you, doc, they always want something else from you. Latest thing is another life insurance policy on me. In

case I drop dead tomorrow. They figure the whole church’ll collapse without me.”

“Is it true?”

Reverend Wright shook his head. “I’m not the church, Barack. If I die tomorrow, I hope the

congregation will give me a decent burial. I like to think a few tears will be shed. But as soon as I’m six feet

under, they’ll be right back on the case, figuring out how to make this church live up to its mission.”

He had grown up in Philadelphia, the son of a Baptist minister. He had resisted his father’s vocation at

first, joining the Marines out of college, dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties. But

the call of his faith had apparently remained, a steady tug on his heart, and eventually he’d entered Howard,

then the University of Chicago, where he spent six years studying for a Ph.D. in the history of religion. He

learned Hebrew and Greek, read the literature of Tillich and Niebuhr and the black liberation theologians.

The anger and humor of the streets, the book learning and occasional twenty-five-cent word, all this he had

brought with him to Trinity almost two decades ago. And although it was only later that I would learn much

of this biography, it became clear in that very first meeting that, despite the reverend’s frequent disclaimers,

it was this capacious talent of his-this ability to hold together, if not reconcile, the conflicting strains of black

experience-upon which Trinity’s success had ultimately been built.

“We got a lot of different personalities here,” he told me. “Got the Africanist over here. The traditionalist

over here. Once in a while, I have to stick my hand in the pot-smooth things over before stuff gets ugly. But

that’s rare. Usually, if somebody’s got an idea for a new ministry, I just tell ’em to run with it and get outta

their way.”

His approach had obviously worked: the church had grown from two hundred to four thousand

members during his tenure; there were organizations for every taste, from yoga classes to Caribbean clubs.

He was especially pleased with the church’s progress in getting more men involved, although he admitted

that they still had a way to go.

“Nothing’s harder than reaching young brothers like yourself,” he said. “They worry about looking soft.

They worry about what their buddies are gonna say about ’em. They tell themselves church is a woman’s

thing-that it’s a sign of weakness for a man to admit that he’s got spiritual needs.”

The reverend looked up at me then, a look that made me nervous. I decided to shift the conversation to

more familiar ground, telling him about DCP and the issues we were working on, explaining the need for

involvement from larger churches like his. He sat patiently and listened to my pitch, and when I was finished

he gave a small nod.

“I’ll try to help you if I can,” he said. “But you should know that having us involved in your effort isn’t

necessarily a feather in your cap.”

“Why’s that?”

Reverend Wright shrugged. “Some of my fellow clergy don’t appreciate what we’re about. They feel

like we’re too radical. Others, we ain’t radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough. Our emphasis

on African history, on scholarship-”

“Some people say,” I interrupted, “that the church is too upwardly mobile.”

The reverend’s smile faded. “That’s a lot of bull,” he said sharply. “People who talk that mess reflect

their own confusion. They’ve bought into the whole business of class that keeps us from working together.

Half of ’em think that the former gang-banger or the former Muslim got no business in a Christian church.

Other half think any black man with an education or a job, or any church that respects scholarship, is

somehow suspect.

“We don’t buy into these false divisions here. It’s not about income, Barack. Cops don’t check my bank