Obama stayed with Gates' lawyer after '04 DNC speech

Charles Ogletree Jr.

JERUSALEM – President Obama vacationed several times with the lawyer of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor at the center of a national race controversy, it has emerged.

The lawyer, Charles Ogletree Jr., himself a Harvard University professor, is closely linked to the Black Panthers and to radical black ideology, WND reported. Ogletree is a key member of the reparations movement and once pursued the possibility of bringing a class action lawsuit to win reparations for descendants of African slaves.

Obama confirmed to CBS News last week he and his family will vacation late next month in Martha's Vineyard, Mass. Gates himself is reportedly headed there this week.

When rumors started floating in April that the Obamas would vacation on the Vineyard, the Boston Globe reported Ogletree, who has owned a place in Oak Bluffs for 15 years, has hosted Obama on several occasions. The first time was in August 2004, after the then–Illinois senator's speech at the Democratic National Convention that shot him to national fame.

"He would tell you I misled him," Ogletree told the Globe. "I asked him to just drop by (Martha's Vineyard) and say hi, and then when he showed up there were all these really excited people there to meet him."

Ogletree told the Globe that Obama would likely use his time on the island to read, play golf and spend time with his wife, Michelle, and their two children.

"He'll be Mr. Dad as opposed to Mr. President," Ogletree said.

In May, FoxNews.com quoted an anonymous source on the Vineyard, a local businessman, speculating Obama may stay with Ogletree during his rumored vacation there.

WND first reported last week that Ogletree was a mentor for both Barack and Michelle Obama and served on the president's black advisory council.

"I met Barack when he arrived at Harvard Law School in fall of 1988. He was quiet and unassuming, but had an incredibly sharp mind and a thirst for knowledge," Ogletree said in an interview last year with Essence Magazine.

"Even then I saw his ability to quickly grasp the most complicated legal issues and sort them out in a clear, concise fashion," said Ogletree.

Ogletree explained Obama was a regular participant in an after-class activity the Harvard professor created called the Saturday School Program – a series of workshops and meetings held Saturday mornings designed to expose minority students to issues in the study of law.

Ogletree also told Essence that he mentored Michelle Obama when she enrolled at Harvard three years before her future husband. Ogletree said he gave Michelle career advice.

"I met Michelle when she started her legal career here at Harvard in the fall of 1985, and I was able to watch her develop into a very strong and powerful student leader. She was an active member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, where she served as a student attorney for indigent clients who had civil cases and needed legal help," Ogletree related.

"I routinely gave career advice, and often personal advice, to students who would come in with questions about where they should work, how they should use their legal skills and talent, and was it possible to do well and do good," Ogletree said.

"My advice to people like Barack and Michelle was that they could easily navigate the challenges of a corporate career and find a variety of ways to serve their community," he said.

During Obama's senatorial career, Ogletree advised the politician on reforming the criminal-justice system as well on constitutional issues. Ogletree served on the black advisory panel of Obama's presidential campaign.

Black radical politics

Ogletree is closely linked to radical black activism. As a student in 1970 at Stanford University near San Francisco, a center of black radicalism at the time, Ogletree organized an Afrocentric dormitory. He edited a campus Black Panther newspaper called The Real News and traveled to Africa and Cuba as part of student activist groups. Ogletree attended nearly every day of the trial of Black Power activist and communist Angela Davis.

Ogletree moved on to Harvard Law School, where he continued his political activism, becoming national president of the Black Law Students Association.

Ogletree gained national prominence in 1991 when he represented Anita Hill during the controversial Senate confirmation hearings at which she accused Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.

In 2000, Ogletree joined the Reparations Coordinating Committee, serving as the group's co-chair. The committee pursued a lawsuit to win reparations for descendants of African slaves. The committee was convened by the TransAfrica Forum, a partner organization of the leftist Institute for Policy Studies.

Ogletree is now representing Gates, the professor at the center of race controversy after he was handcuffed in his home by police following a burglary report. Obama mentioned the incident last week in a prime-time news conference, accusing police of "acted stupidly" in dealing with Gates.