Obama's peers didn't see his angst

HONOLULU — As a second-stringer for the Punahou high school basketball squad, Barack Obama would fire up his teammates with renditions from the R&B group Earth, Wind & Fire. In yearbooks, he signed his name with a flourishing O, for Obama, which he topped with an Afro. In a world of 1970s rock 'n' roll, he was known for a love of jazz.

To his classmates, the skinny kid with a modest Afro had comfortably taken his place in the ethnic rainbow of Punahou, an elite prep school.

Today, Obama is a campaign sensation, in part because he is seen as the first black presidential candidate who might be able to reach beyond race, building support among Americans of all backgrounds.

That capacity does not surprise the students who knew Obama at Punahou School, which carefully nurtured a respect for diversity.

"We had chapel sessions on the Bahai faith, Islam, Judaism, and all forms of Christianity," said Bernice G. Bowers, a classmate. "The message was that diversity made for a richer community."

Dressed like other boys in the required collared shirts and khaki pants, Obama was one of a small number of blacks, but the student body included large numbers of kids with Chinese, Japanese, Samoan and native Hawaiian ancestry, as well as many whites.

"We didn't think about his blackness," said Mark Hebing, who went to school with Obama for eight years.

As a candidate, Obama is also trying to show that he understands the indignities of racism and the economic troubles that many believe continue to flow from the legacy of slavery.

Punahou was where Obama first awakened to these issues, and to the complexities of being black in America. In his bestselling memoir, "Dreams From My Father," he writes that during his time at the school -- from fifth grade through his high school graduation in 1979 -- he felt the first stirrings of anger toward whites. He says he also delved into black nationalism.

He also experimented with marijuana and occasionally cocaine, which were prevalent in the '70s but presented what Obama in his book calls special dangers for young black men.

Obama's father was a black Kenyan, his mother a white American from Kansas. He was born in Hawaii and spent part of his childhood in Indonesia before returning to Honolulu and enrolling in Punahou.

Obama says that as he found his way in the world, he learned there were limits to the desirability of advertising his race.