Chicago Tribune: Digging Up Barack's Past

THE MAKING OF A CANDIDATE

The not-so-simple story of Barack Obama's youth

The glare of the presidential campaign is shining on people previously hidden behind pseudonyms in Obama's memoirs. One of them, a convicted felon, demanded money from the campaign. Or else.

By Maurice Possley and Ray Gibson
Tribune staff reporters
Published March 23, 2007, 7:30 PM CDT

In the introduction to his 1995 memoir, "Dreams from My Father,'' Barack Obama noted that except for his family and several public figures, he had changed the names of most of the people in the book "for the sake of their privacy."

More than a decade later, that privacy is rapidly evaporating as the media, Obama's own campaign staff and others have begun to dig into the book and reach out to friends, classmates and associates of the presidential candidate.

Continued