A relatively obscure Chicago charitable fund and a 1960s radical turned college professor have become headaches for Sen. Barack Obama.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map 
From 1998 to 2001, Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a foundation that makes grants to fight poverty.
Also serving with him was William C. Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a person Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago has called “a valued member of the Chicago community.”
However, Ayers is also a former member of the Weather Underground, the radical 1960s and 1970s anti-war group that was responsible for several bombings.
Obama’s connection to Ayers came up Wednesday in the debate between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the two remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Obama about the former Weatherman. Clinton then picked up on the topic, saying Ayers “set bombs. And in some instances, people died. So it is … an issue people will be asking about.”
Her statement may have needed some clarification. While Ayers did set bombs, those bombs didn’t kill anyone.
Rather, three members of the Weather Underground — Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robbins — died in Greenwich Village on March 6, 1970, when a bomb they were assembling accidentally exploded.
After that, Ayers and his future wife, Bernadine Dohrn, also a member of the group, went into hiding for 10 years. In 1980, they turned themselves in. Ayers was not convicted of any crime; Dohrn pled guilty to some charges and later served a few months in jail.
In a 2001 interview with The New York Times Ayers is quoted as saying, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.”
Conducted before Sept. 11, 2001, the interview was published on that date, and has been cited by some of Obama’s critics as proof of Ayers’ support of the terrorist attacks on the United States. On his blog, Ayers denies this accusation.
Obama said during the debate that Ayers’ actions 40 years ago were “detestable.” He called Ayers “a guy who lives in my neighborhood… not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.”
In addition, Obama noted that Clinton’s husband had commuted the sentences of
Weather Underground members Susan L. Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans while he was president.
A story by Peter Slevin in Friday’s The Washington Post reported that, regardless of their pasts, both Ayers and Dohrn have gained “bipartisan respect” for their activities on behalf of children in Chicago.
Ayers has written widely on children’s issues and on themes of war and peace, and he’s active in several Chicago organizations.
A professor at Northwestern University’s School of Law, Dohrn is the head of the Children and Family Justice Center there.
A 1967 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, she worked at the Chicago law firm now known as Sidney Austin LLP from 1984 to 1988.
Obama’s wife, Michelle Robinson Obama, joined the firm in 1988 after graduating from Harvard Law School. Barack Obama met her then when he was a summer associate at the firm.
According to a report on the website of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the flap over Obama and Ayers has left the offices of The Woods Fund of Chicago “under siege.”
The Chronicle reported that each man received $6,000 a year as a board member. Ayers, who for a period was chairman of the board, remains a part of the group. It had just over $58 million is assets at the end of 2006.
The organization gave away over $3 million in 2006 to a wide variety of Chicago groups.
The fund is an offshoot of the Woods Charitable Fund that was started in 1941 in Lincoln, Neb., by Nellie and Frank Woods. He was a lawyer and telephone company executive.
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7 Comments
#1. DEMS WANT AMERICAN HATER OBAMA OUT NOW! 04.20.2008
VOTERS DEMAND Obama tell about his relationship with Ayers/Iraqi crook Nadhmi Auchi/Hamas TERRORIST MOUSA ABU MARZOOK and TERRORIST SYMPATHIZER AIL BAGHDADI who write articles for Obamas church. It’s important because voters are realizing those relationships, coupled with Obama’s longtime relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a pattern which Obama seems quite comfortable with people who really, really, really don’t like the United States of America or white people! NOT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL!
Obama shows he is not ready to lead out country!
Quit blaming Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos for Obama’s shortcomings. Instead, blame is Obamas for failing to grasp how tax penalties on upward mobility hurting the very people he thinks he’s going to help
Did someone say inexperience?
During the debate, Obama bungled on tax policy, big time. Period. End of sentence. End of story. To liberals in the media, Get over it. Obama proved he has a very poor grasp of basic economic principles.
First off, you don’t raise taxes during a recession. That’s a no-brainer. Second, doubling the capital-gains tax rate will affect Americans up and down the income ladder, not just rich hedge-fund managers. In addition, capital-gains tax cuts are self-financing, and they stimulate jobs and the economy. You want to raise budget revenues and spark economic growth? Cut the cap-gains tax rate. That’s what history shows.
Another blunder Obama also proposed uncapping the payroll tax, his tax hike on payrolls would actually slam middle-income earners, eliminating that cap Obama will be soaking veteran firemen, cops, teachers, and health-service workers, along with a variety of other occupations. Fact, in America’s largest cities, a firefighter married to a school teacher can earn close to $200,000 filing jointly. So not only will each spouse separately pay more for Social Security and health care under Obama’s plan, together they’ll also be slammed by Obama’s cap-gains tax increase.
This is more than just a failure to understand the Laffer curve. It’s another cultural misstep by Obama. I can’t help but wonder if the senator knows any cops or firemen. His appeal is to well-educated latte liberals. That remark about middle-income folks having turned to God, faith, and guns because of economic setbacks? Not only was it ill-advised, it illustrates the wide cultural chasm that exists between the candidate and the rest of America.
Obama’s economics are bad and his social circle is very limited. This is one of the many reasons why a quarter of the Hillary Democrats are telling pollsters they’ll likely move to John McCain in the general election.
Obama’s real agenda is far-liberal left. It’s an ideology that places income redistribution above economic growth. That’s his real message. And it’s the same one that sunk Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry. Obama is aligning himself with the Democratic losers. And that will make him a loser as well.
African American communities desperately need capital in order to create new businesses and jobs. As Obama takes the capital out of capitalism, all those who are not rich will be hurt when the rich folks with capital have less of it — after tax — to invest in those new businesses and new jobs. That’s exactly why wealth-redistribution plans always backfire. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is a surefire economic loser. So is putting government in charge of the economy, which is what Mr. Obama is proselytizing.
This marks the third mistake for the Illinois senator. Not only does he not understand economics; not only is he set apart from middle-class values and beliefs; he apparently hasn’t read much history either. Did someone say inexperience?
#2. DEMS WANT AMERICAN HATER OBAMA OUT NOW! 04.20.2008
WRITE DNC AND DEMAND OBAMA DROP OUT OF RACE!
THE MEDIA LIKE AP-CNN AND MSNBC ARE SELLING OUT AMERICANS
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2008/04/05/ap-covers-obama-avoiding-churchs-pastors-essence
Associated Press Playing defense for Obama Karen Hawkins and Christopher Wills of the Associated Press quilty of Wright-wash, Hawkins and Wills avoid any mention of the Black Liberation Theology that forms foundation belief system of Trinity United Church. AP pair purposely avoided any mention of inflammatory items in weekly bulletin articles published by the Church.
Nowhere in the story was any mention of the Church’s belief system, which was outlined by McClatchy’s Margaret Tavel on Mar 20.
Obamas church pushes controversial doctrines. Jesus is black. Merging Marxism with Christian Gospel may show the way to a better tomorrow. The white church in America is the Antichrist because it supported slavery and segregation. Those are some doctrines that animate the theology at the core of Obamas church.
Wright said basis for Trinitys philosophies the work of James Cone, founder black liberation theology movement out of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Particularly influential was Cones book, Black Theology & Black Power. Cone wrote that the U.S. was a white racist nation and the white church was the Antichrist for having supported slavery and segregation.
TCC’S Pastors Page section, the Rev. Wright gave two pages to Hamas TERRORIST MOUSA ABU MARZOOK. The column originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times, which came under heavy criticism for running it. Among Marzook’s many whoppers: A number of political parties today control blocs in the Israeli Knesset, while advocating for the expulsion of Arab citizens from Israel and the rest of Palestine, envisioning a single Jewish state from the Jordan to the sea. CAMERA.org wrote at the time that “that no Israeli parties in government advocate the ‘expulsion’ of Arabs; one calls for voluntary transfer.”
TCC Pastor’s Page section, written by TERRORIST SYMPATHIZER AIL BAGHDADI. Among other things, Baghdadi wrote I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the White Supremacists of South Africa. In fact, South Africa allowed Israel to test its nuclear weapons in the ocean off South Africa. The Israelis were given a blank check: they could test whenever they desired and did not even have to ask permission. Both worked on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs. The KKK, on its worst day, never accused the ethnic groups it hated of attempting to concoct a “white bomb. Rev. Wright not only allowed these hate-filled diatribes to appear in TUCCs bulletins but supports as does Obama.
Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden would be praying for an Obama victory because it would help the militants win in Iraq. Article by Citizen Wells 3/08,
Obama has a dual citizenship with Kenya. Obama is an anti-Israel, pro-pan-Arabian Islamic-socialist who has ties to Marxist Libyan President Muamar al Gadaffi, and a Syrian tycoon, Antoin Rezko, Saudi Arabian Scheiks and Rezko’s “close friend” Nadhami Auchi, the one who gave Obama fundraiser money (and helped to buy his mansion): Iraqi billionaire, global arms dealer, Nadhmi Auchi, was Baathist best friends with Saddam Hussein, and the main financial backer (from funds stolen from Oil for Food Program0 for Saddam’s - Iraqi -Saudi oil pipeline, and who stood trial with Saddam Hussein in 1959 for conspiring to assassinate Iraqi President Qasim.
Also marxist Nicaragian President Daniel Ortega is on the front line supporting Obama for the revolution of changes and then there is hard core anti-Israel, pro-Palestine PLO Enforcer Rashid Khalid, (Obama was on Kalidi’s Woods Fund. Obama was a memb er of the Woods Fund with communist domestic terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground who bombed the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol among other things and their organization raised money for anti-Israel programs, and also AAAN, for Arabs and then there is especially Kenya - where in August 2007, Obama went to Kenya to support his E. Germany communist educated cousin Raila Odinga for Kenyan Presidential election, who claims coincidentally to also be a Christian who signed NAMLEF and other pacts wutg radical muslims who set churches filled with Christians on fire, and macheted them in the streets, causing a political and religious mini-civil war over the MUO.
all of Obama’s mentors, buddies, political affiliations, organizational memberships and all of his hard core militant muslim family members, like his brother Abongo (Roy” Odinga who hates America, and their communist grandfather who ran with Russia and hated America, not to mention his socialist connection to his profound childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Communist Party, CPUSA, and Obama’s endorsement by the Black Panthers. Obama titled his book “Audacity of Hope,” after Pastor Wright’s sermon about the need to destroy capitalism and the middle-class at the hands of the rich white people and the west.
#3. jake 04.20.2008
Read this and wake up instead of the rubbish in the above article;
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/20/opinion/edrich.php?page=2
#4. Philadelphious 04.20.2008
Why isn’t anyone writing stories about how Hillary Clinton is only running for the votes of super delegates. She admittedly and whole heartedly does not believe that this election should be based on the popular vote of normal non-super-delegate citizens. Moreover, she bluntly states that the votes of ordinary citizens of the United States of America should not amount to any value whatsoever in this election. I heard her interviewed on NPR stating that pledged delegates who were appointed by elections in previous state primaries should ignore the vote of the people and vote for her regardless of percentages. Please, listen for yourself via this link to npr.org’s recording of the interview by Michele Norris. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89476099 Afterwards, ask yourself, “does she care about us?” I demand fair coverage by our evidently spineless commercial media!
#5. Mr. Unite Us 04.20.2008
So Ayers didn’t kill anyone,and was never convicted.
But Clinton commuted the sentences of two convicted
murders on his last day in office. Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans.
Next up Clinton Fraud case hearing April 25 in California.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lpMd-9Mg0MM
#6. LC 04.20.2008
Ayers did kill people you (inappropriate comment deleted).
The reason he wasn’t convicted was because of a mistrial.
And now he’s an English professor.
He feels invincible because of people like you. Won’t you change your ways?
#7. DINO 06.03.2008
OBAMA FRIENDS
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