Davis wrote militant poems as a black writer in Chicago, including one in which he hails the Soviet revolution: "Smash on, victory-eating Red Army." He also attacked traditional Christianity, titling one inflammatory screed, "Christ is a Dixie N*****."

In the eyes of white America, Davis warned Obama: "You may be a well-trained, well-paid n*****, but you're a n***** just the same." He also nurtured anti-white hatred in his young mulatto subject, telling him, "Black people have a reason to hate."

Obama attended socialist conferences, and took a shine to other black Marxist revolutionists. Not long after Davis died in 1987, Obama came under the spell of another black nationalist-socialist, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who, like Davis, wore a dashiki and became a father figure.