Barack Obama and William Ayers, Part 2

by Jay McDonough

Continuing from the earlier post:

The McCain campaign has alleged Barack Obama continued to "pal around" with William Ayers when the two served on the boards of two government and privately funded projects in Illinois in the 1990's.

The first was the Annenberg Challenge, a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001.  One of 18 Annenberg Challenge sites, the Chicago group was funded by approximately $50M from the Annenberg Foundation, $50M from private donations and $50M from government grants.

(Walter) Annenberg (said)...: "Everybody around the world wants to send their kids to our universities. South America, Asia, Europe, all of them. But nobody wants to send their kids here to public school. Who would, especially in a big city? Nobody. So we've got to do something. If we don't, our civilization will collapse."

The original grant proposal for the $50M from the Annenberg Foundation was written by William Ayers, Anne Hallet, and Warren Chapman and was awarded in January, 1995.  The Board of Directors was handpicked by Adele Smith Simmons, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and consisted of eight indiviiduals representing community, business and civic leaders.  The original BOD included Barack Obama serving as chairman.  The Board did not include Bill Ayers.  It has been reported Bill Ayers attended approximately 6 of the Board meetings over the 6 year life of the program.

A 23 member group (the Chicago School Reform Collaboration), consisting of parents, activists, fundraisers, administrators, school council members and academics was established to administer the project.  Bill Ayers was chosen to chair that group. (Barack Obama was not included in this group).

Ayers and Obama also crossed paths while both worked on the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty group established in 1941.  The charter of that group:

"a grantmaking foundation whose goal is to increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities in the metropolitan area, including the opportunity to shape decisions affecting them. The foundation works primarily as a funding partner with nonprofit organizations. Woods supports nonprofits in their important roles of engaging people in civic life, addressing the causes of poverty and other challenges facing the region, promoting more effective public policies, reducing racism and other barriers to equal opportunity, and building a sense of community and common ground."

It's reported Barack Obama joined the group in 1993 and served until 2003.  Bill Ayers jointed the Board in approximately 2000, and Obama and Ayers, co-board members, attended about a dozen quarterly meetings together in Ayers three year term.

Wikipedia notes Obama and Ayers have appeared together in panel discussions at several academic forums in the Chicago area; including one in 1997 on juvenile justice and another in 2002 at a panel sponsored by the Chicago Public Library.

It's pretty clear Bill Ayers is a big gun in the public education field in Chicago.  One can cast whatever judgments one wants about the appropriateness of working with Bill Ayers, given his history, but if you want to work in this field in Chicago, you're going to cross paths with Ayers.  And a lot of very respected folks in Chicago have ended up working with him.

Now, John McCain continues to assert Barack Obama should come clean about his associations with Bill Ayers, implying there's more to the story than we know.  The above is on the public record.  If John McCain knows something more, he ought to raise the issue to Barack Obama's face. Tonight.

Comments

[bobf.]

Did you notice that Obama said that he was only 8 years old when Bill Ayers' Weather Underground was active? Yet the last action by Bill Ayers' group happened on September 4, 1975 when Obama was apparently 14 years old.