Thanks to all of you who responded to my post on Stanley Kurtz’s call for help pressing the University of Illinois at Chicago to free the Obama/Ayers papers.

Kurtz has an update and is still quite worried about the endangered documents, so don’t let this one go:

I remain unsatisfied with mainstream media reporting on this issue, and continue to be extremely concerned for the safety and fate of the documents. We need more public pressure, and better reporting. I plan to say more down the road about Obama’s role at Annenberg, even without access to the records at UIC. I also plan to say more about the detailed finding aid now in my possession, and about the contents of the single file folder I was permitted to examine.

Here are those contact links again:

Email here.

Phone/Fax here.

Meantime Steve Diamond has compiled a must-read post, “Behind the Annenberg Gate” on his efforts to obtain key information about Obama/Ayers:

As Global Labor readers are now aware, the University of Illinois is blocking access to the records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an Illinois non profit corporation, established in 1995.

However, several months ago I was able to obtain key records of the Challenge – including board minutes, annual and semi-annual reports and financial records – from Brown University’s Annenberg Institute, which housed the national Annenberg Challenge program that was set up in 1993 by a gift of $500 million from Walter Annenberg.

Below is an analysis of what I found in those documents. They evidence

-the leading role that Bill Ayers played in the Annenberg Challenge;

-the equally important role played by Barack Obama; and

-the intensely political nature of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Skip the non-reporting from the AP.

This is what you need to know.