Editor, Gazette-Journal:

A few days ago, I was castigated by an acquaintance for admitting a little over four years ago I was ready to vote for a young, new candidate for president named Barack Obama. To me, a child of the ’60s who participated in tearing down racial barriers, Barack Obama seemed to have been the fulfillment of Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Dream’: a color-blind society, racial equality.

Then I read "Dreams from my Father" and realized Barack’s heroes were not my heroes. He said he sought out the company of revolutionaries: Marxists, socialists and communists like those he had been brought up to respect and idolize by his parents, grandparents, mentor Frank Marshall Davis—and my commitment to Barack Obama waned.

My heroes were Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights leaders of the ’60s. I questioned whether MLK would have condoned Planned Parenthood, an organization now known to have been founded to create a "pure" popu...